


The Shadows of Flowers

by michiamano



Category: Victoria (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2018-08-17 02:54:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 35
Words: 72,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8127619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/michiamano/pseuds/michiamano
Summary: You were happy too?





	1. Music

Gold. She saw gold and black. She had ducked as if guilty, her eyes tugged away from the music. Her mind had been full of the black notes on the pale page. Now she saw gold braid on black cloth - and the face above. The pale face out of the past.

She had hardly seen his hand move across the score and turn for her. A turn timed so well that she had noticed only when it was done. The piece had swept her in long since, in and along. Beyond the keyboard and the candleflame the room had been a blur of vague colour. Only one face had come to her clear. She had looked to him and met his gaze; his slanted smile. Everything they had said was in this music. All the words that had hurt to speak. She heard the calls of the rooks from the raw morning sky. She felt his hands on hers. She saw his broken eyes.

The eyes above her now were not a changing green, lucid as glass. They were a blue less bright than her own. The music was still surging through her. She stared up at the face she half knew.

‘Victoria.’

Something in her flinched at his voice. He should speak with the voice she remembered. Her memory had frozen him in its amber. A stilted child on the edge of games, stiff and disapproving. This man was too tall. He was too striking in the candlelight. His half-smile asked an uncertain question.

‘Albert,’ she answered.

Dash waggled toward the piano. She must have sounded defensive, because he began to bark. She was glad to laugh; glad to gather him up, holding his feathery warmth between her and the familiar stranger who had turned the page so well.

‘Dash! Now, stop that. You’re being rude. You mustn’t bark at Cousin Albert, even if he does look quite different to the last time we saw him.’

‘I’m sorry if your dog does not recognise me.’

At once he saw the resentment behind her eyes. This, he thought, this is how she remembers me. This is Albert, she thought. He has changed in height alone.

‘I, on the other hand, had no difficulty in recognising you,’ he said. ‘Although now I believe you’re playing the piano with fewer mistakes.’

Anger snaked through her. The glow of the music was in her skin. Her heart still beat with its rhythm. She knew what Melbourne would say, if he had turned her final page and stood before her now. Beautiful, Ma’am, he would say. I could never tire of hearing you play. He would make the glow in her skin wrap itself around her and hold her all the night.

Albert watched her anger rise. He had no sweet words to say. Sweet and soft words were not his. He wished for a moment that he had spoken differently. Yet he had seen her hands on the keys, more sure and firm than they had been in childhood. She played with fewer mistakes. He had offered her truth.

Ernest was coming. He was speeding in with his smile of rescue. Victoria turned to him, and her own smile reappeared.

‘Ernest!’

‘How magnificent you look, Cousin Victoria...’

With his brother her eyes grew kind. Ernest patted the wriggling dog. Ernest’s words were sugar and satin. She looked at him easily. Her mother was praising their Coburg handsomeness. Coburg men were all handsome. It was no very great achievement.

My brother is the most handsome man here, he said to himself. He looked around the room. He let the thought go. The Prime Minister stood near the piano.

Victoria was laughing, uncomfortable. ‘Please, Mama,’ she replied. ‘They’re not racehorses,’ and Ernest grinned, the grin fitting him as naturally as his red-topped boots, his braided jacket. The braid was too heavy for Albert. His own jacket felt like some borrowed shell. Soon he would be in privacy, able to take it off. He could cut it up, so that no-one, not even Ernest, would be able to persuade him into it any more.

He had been quiet too long for his brother. Ernest nodded at him.

‘We were hoping tomorrow it might be possible to see some of your paintings here. Albert has just returned from Italy, and speaks of nothing but the Old Masters.’

Albert stepped forwards. This, surely, she understood. Beethoven had absorbed her. She had concentrated as if the music were tangible. Before those paintings he had heard a soundless music. He spoke with eagerness close to Ernest’s.

‘I believe, in your collection, there are some works by Leonardo da Vinci.’

She hesitated. ‘Perhaps there are,’ high and light. ‘I really don’t know.’

She read the shock in his posture, and the disdain. Just another ignorance for him to criticise. She imagined guiding him around the royal gallery. Hours under the gloom of his disapproval. Hours of feeling like a naughty student, passing work after work whose artists she could not and did not care to name.

Ernest was going to speak. She searched for Melbourne in the little crowd. His smile found her. She was anchored. He was moving nearer, and she could raise her head higher. Her voice felt less strained.

‘As to tomorrow, Lord Melbourne and I have a great deal of business to attend to. Don’t we, Lord M?’

His surprise flickered briefly. Then, with a nod, ‘Oh yes, Ma’am. The dispatches from Afghanistan will require your complete attention.’

He smiled to cloak the lie. Her gratitude came to him like a windblown scent. He wished that he could touch her - bring his bare hands to the bare skin of her arms, as he had at Brocket Hall, holding her after her confession, so brave, so young. She had trembled in the cold.

Albert shifted his shoulders under the rigid cloth. He watched his cousin and her politician. Melbourne was tuned to Victoria. He moved when she moved. Whenever she looked for him, he was looking at her. Melbourne’s handsomeness was almost beauty.

Albert could feel his time wasting past. He glanced at Ernest, who winked just in time to stop him from frowning. Uncle Leopold beckoned to them.

Victoria did not look at his face as he said goodnight. After he had bowed and she had said a few nothing words and he had walked out of the door, Ernest took his arm and muttered ‘Not too badly done,’ and Leopold patted his back as gently as if he were an infant. In the corridor, Albert pulled off his jacket. A button popped away. Ernest rolled it along the carpet with the shining toe of his boot.

The Queen knew her mother would be waiting for her, just outside the door. The ladies would linger on the staircase. Lehzen must be in the bedchamber. Here, for the smallest time, she and Melbourne were by themselves. She had this time to breathe before the clockwork clicked back to motion and pushed her onward.

‘Ma’am?’

She turned to face him. It would be enough to stand and look up at him. It would hold in the warmth of the fading music.

He reached out. He touched her arms. She felt their time crumbling away.

‘Come early tomorrow, Lord M.’

He nodded. Gently he brought his hand to her cheek; drew his thumb across, drying a tear not yet cried.


	2. Sorry

She left the dance and the room. Her hand was at her chest. The flowers were gone. They were inside Albert’s torn shirt. He had pulled the knife from his boot and held it before her, so near that he could have cut her skin. She would rather he had. She would not care for the mark if the flowers were back in her hands.

His confession had startled her. His mother, he said - kissing him goodnight, wearing gardenias. Under the candles, under the dazzle of his grief and his looks, she had forgotten. The flowers were hers. They were Lord M’s. She had forgotten in one moment of pity, and she had remembered before he opened the blade. Her fingers had clung to the petals. She had stared at him as he took them. She could not take them back - and he was so close, and tall, and he held them so tenderly.

The prince glanced past her. His gaze met Melbourne’s. Suddenly Albert was still. He knew what he had taken. It was in the face of the older man. The politician could not lie. He could not bring the lie of a smile up to his stricken eyes.

Now the Queen stood alone in the corridor. A shapeless fear blew down it, cold as the draught fluttering her skirt. As she rushed out of the bright room she had not looked at Lord M. Here among the shadows, she knew what she would have seen in his face. The thought sliced through her. She felt the first burning of tears.

The Prime Minister started for the door. Albert glanced at him. The sight of Melbourne usually brought resentment. He would see the marble profile and the grace and hear the words chosen with such ease, and envy green as the Englishman’s eyes would come. It reduced him to a child; a schoolboy, counting out the almost thirty years between them. Tonight it was stained with unwilling guilt.

‘Lord Melbourne,’ he said. ‘A moment, if you please.’

Melbourne did not stop. He slowed, and let the prince fall in beside him.

‘Yes, your highness?’

Albert hesitated. The Queen had flushed as his arm rounded her waist. As they danced her gaze had hardly left his. But first she had run to Melbourne, taken his hands in full view of the room, smiled up with an affection that goaded Albert out of his corner; goaded him to hand his gloves to a chuckling Ernest and walk to Victoria’s side. He should have guessed who had given her the gardenias. All the same, they were in his shirt. Guilt and satisfaction made a bitter blend.

Melbourne waited. To keep his face patient was a growing effort. He had watched the Queen leave with her eyes wide and shocked. The pain in his own mind could be borne. Her pain could not.

‘Your highness must be tired,’ and he lengthened his step. Albert kept up.

‘No. I am not tired. Perhaps the late night troubles you.’

In his own ears he was a surly boy. Melbourne had not attended. The peer was hurrying now. Albert had to jog, hair falling over his brows. People muttered as they sped by. Viscountess Portman sighed, and followed.

The two men reached the door. Melbourne heard footsteps outside. A sound like a muffled sob. He turned toward the prince and spoke through smiling lips.

‘Sir, if you have something to say to me, I am listening.’

‘I do not - that is, she did not - I mean that she seemed willing to -’

‘Her Majesty’s actions are her own, sir. I have only one request for you. When you are standing so close to her, leave that knife in your boot.’

The Viscountess coughed. Melbourne turned with gratitude. Albert turned with a dishevelled frown. The flowers made his white shirt look grey.

‘Your highness,’ she said. ‘We should be delighted to hear you play.’

‘Thank you. It flatters me. But I do not wish -’

‘Come, come! You would not be so unkind as to disappoint us, would you?’

She led the prince away. Over her shoulder she sent a pushing look to Melbourne. He slipped out into the corridor.

Far along it, Victoria was running. The thickness of the carpet stole her steps. They cast no echo down the walls. She felt as if she were a ghost. As if she could not make a noise; could not leave a mark where her feet landed. Only the mirrors showed her flickers of herself, her tear-streaked face fleeting through the dark.

From the doorway, Melbourne heard the swish of her gown. He saw points of trembling light - the jewels at her neck, in her hair. He ran after her.

She did not hear the steps behind until they were near. Heavier steps than hers. A murmuring echo, gaining on her quickly. She did not look back. She ran with the heat of her tears in her throat and her thin shoes sliding on the wood of the staircase. Outside. No-one would follow her outside.

Rain was blowing across the gardens. She did not realise how thick it was until she had shoved through a door and the wind dragged her hair loose from its pins. She pulled the tiara off her head. Mama’s tiara. She dropped it into the grass. Slowing, she walked on. Whoever had chased her had stopped at the door. She could cry in the rising storm and none of them would know.

‘Ma’am! Wait.’

His voice made her stop even now. Even when she was blind with tears and a thousand tears of rain were soaking her blue dress black. She gripped the silk of the bodice; the space the flowers had covered, soft as snow. Their smell was still there. It touched her like a hand reaching to comfort.

His hand came to her shoulder. Shame crawled down her body. She stepped forward - he stepped too. His hand did not fall.

‘Ma’am. Wait for me.’

He felt her sobbing. She was folding inward. Petals closing, against the wind and the night. He tightened his grip on her shoulder. Here where no-one else could see, his other hand came to her arm. But she moved her arm, bent it to wipe her face, and his hand was on her side. She breathed into his palm.

‘Lord M,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Never apologise to me, Ma’am.’

At last she turned. He saw her eyes, swollen red. Her cheeks were blotching. How beautiful you are, he thought. How lovely. She looked up at the rain beginning to flatten his curls. An aching wish caught her - an urge to pull her fingers through his hair, to weave it round them. Her hand rose as high as his chest. She opened it on the damp cloth. The heat of him seeped through.

‘Lord M,’ and her words strengthened. ‘I am sorry.’

She felt when he let out his breath. A long low note of acceptance.

The first thunder grumbled. He began to unbutton his coat. She shook her head, stopping his hand.

‘I am not cold.’

‘Nor am I, Ma’am.’

Water tingled down his neck. He could not stifle his shiver, and his heart stumbled as she laughed. Her hands curled under his lapels. A weary contentment settled in her voice.

‘I wanted to dance with you, Lord M.’

‘Ma’am, I would have asked for that pleasure...’

He paused. She lowered her eyes. He would have asked, if not for Cousin Albert. Albert with his knife; his smothering closeness. She had not stood so close to him as she stood to Melbourne now. Her hands rose and fell with his chest. Everything in her was quiet. He stood, holding her, her calm drawing into him.

‘Come inside,’ he said.

‘I don’t want to.’

A last tear trickled. She tried to sniff it away. Her hands were too warm to move.

He leaned down. Faintly he felt the line between them - the line she had ignored, running to him, calling to him, clasping his hands, turning her glowing eyes up to his face. She, clear as sunlight, her thoughts naked to the gaze of the world, had worn their line so frail that it was barely there. He felt it once more, as it broke.

He leaned further. She raised her head. He kissed the track of the tear. It rolled onto her nose, and he kissed the skin it touched. It rolled downward. He kissed the tear and the rain on her lips.

In time too deep to feel its passing, they stood alone. He had closed his eyes. His cheek rested against her hair; her cheek against his chest. Her eyes were open.

With the lightning, he took her arm. She wound her arm through his.

‘Come inside with me, Ma’am.’

She nodded against his shoulder. They walked together toward the palace. The wind swept around them. In the wet grass, the tiara lay glittering like a star.


	3. Dash

Windsor lay under a colder autumn. Mists hung on the water. The old castle stood vast in its new armour of stone. The court circled round the Queen. Leopold thrust his nephew at his niece. Albert and Victoria played duets and chess. He touched her and stared at her. He criticised, blank and unsmiling, and then loomed over her to speak so intensely that her blush was a fever. She found herself crying at night. Dash bunched himself into her arms and whined. To Albert, he showed his blunt teeth.

Melbourne rode through the woodland. He listened to the grey oboe of the breeze, and missed his flowers. At Brocket Hall the orchids were painting him a rainbow. Tropical plants that would never grow in former years were thriving now. Giant blooms fiery with scent; buds tiny as a baby’s hand; stems and vines adventuring up their frames, touching curious fronds against the glass. Every colour of the world.

Here there were the trees, and their quiet grandeur. The leaves gusted down. They floated from the strands of spiders’ webs, drifted in the streams. Occasionally a lake of ferns jewelled the ground. Melbourne sat among them, reading, writing on Chrysostom, answering Cabinet letters. Birds swooped and called. He wanted to be at home, at the parliament of his rooks. He should be at the parliament of men. But the Queen had asked him to come here. She asked with too-bright eyes. When he hesitated she lurched into anger, pushed past him and away. He did not see as she choked on her panic. Windsor without her companion. Uncle Leopold and Mama and Albert, all of them at once, and Lord M would not be at her side.

He had packed up his work; ordered the carriage. At the glasshouses he stopped to gather a basket of gardenias. They spent the long drive on the opposite seat. His valet gave them to the Queen’s dresser. After midnight, weariness over him like a bruise, grateful for the familiar fit of the Windsor uniform, he walked toward his apartments. It took a short detour to pass the rooms where she slept.

Door after door was closed. Only one sliver of light lay across the floor of the passage. He glanced through into the room. The briefest look - a weight of seeing that lasted long after he had passed. Victoria was awake. She was sitting on the rug before the fireplace, and in her lap and spread around her were the gardenias. Blooms filled her hands; she was holding them out for her wagging spaniel to smell. He took the image and closed it somewhere warm and deep.

Victoria could not let the gardenias fade. She pressed them, each in a different book. The Baroness tutted over the emptying shelves. Privately she smiled. Her little girl had come upstairs after an evening of Albert’s company and smashed an ornament against the wall, just to hear it shatter, just for a sound other than the prince’s voice. Then she had noticed the flowers. She had let her old governess help her into her nightgown and brush out her hair. For the first time since her coronation, she had held up her arms for a hug goodnight. Lehzen let the pile of bulging books grow taller and taller.

A bronze day came when the leaves lay peaceful on the ground. The Prime Minister had spent the morning at the castle. Alfred Paget, coming in from a ride, told him that the Queen was with Albert; that he and Ernest had found themselves superfluous. Melbourne returned to his work. Superfluous. It left a dull buzzing in his ears. His pen spluttered. He pushed the paper away.

Rubbing his eyes, he walked to the window. Dimly his face formed itself on the glass. Silver at his temples. Shadow in the hollows of his cheeks.

Hoofbeats sprinkled the silence. Below, a man trotted past. A strong young figure on a superb horse. Melbourne sighed a dry laugh. He watched his own face line as he smiled. Albert rode across his reflection and out of his view.

He stayed at the window. The Queen would follow. He wanted her to look happy. Whatever her happiness meant, whatever it might bring to his thoughts in the sleepless desk hours, he wanted to see her illumined by it. He waited.

Minutes dawdled by. No more hoofbeats. The courtyard was bare.

Paget might have been mistaken. The prince and the Queen might have ridden in different directions. But Victoria did not ride by herself. She had never liked the solitude. Melbourne moved to a different window. He watched the path leading from the woods. He took out his watch.

With a groan, Lord Alfred clambered off his sofa. Someone was knocking too hard on the door of his rooms. He had spent a pleasant night exploring the castle’s wine cellars, and the early ride had not cleared his head, and he felt as though the visitor were driving nails into it.

‘All right! All right...’

The door opened before he reached the handle. He gaped at the Prime Minister.

‘Paget, have you seen her?’

They met Albert outside the stables. He was striding, swinging his whip against the leather of his boots. When Melbourne called to him he looked up under his hair. He did not speak. Frozen rage was in his face.

Lord Alfred found a sharp desire to walk off. He thought of the Queen; tried to keep himself from squeaking.

‘Your highness! I hope you had a pleasant excursion.’

The prince only glanced at him. His eyes went back to Melbourne and they simmered with a colour the young courtier had never seen. The politician’s eyes had not wavered. He was nearly smiling. His face seemed all bone.

‘Prince Albert,’ he said. ‘Do you know where the Queen is?’

‘We have argued.’

Albert spoke like a spit of poison. Such hate was snarling through him that his body was too slight to hold it. Marry Melbourne, he had said, marry the name you never stop saying, and the hurt in her face was not for his insult. It was for the truth he had struck. This man was more to her than his most jealous guess had measured. This man was in her heartbeat.

Melbourne stepped nearer. The space between them prickled, crackled.

‘I did not ask about your argument, sir. I asked about the Queen.’

A colder anger rolled behind his voice. This was the boy who sought Victoria’s heart. Looking at the German, he tasted contempt. Albert read it. He took a mirrored step.

‘She is in the forest. The dog was injured.’

Melbourne knew his jaw had fallen open. He knew Paget was wobbling anxiously around him, saying something; he saw Albert’s whip hit his boot again, and knew it was making a sound. Sound had sucked out of the courtyard. All he could hear was what the prince had said.

‘Where did you leave her?’

‘A clearing.’

‘Be specific, sir.’

Each man another step. Paget thought he was weeping, but the drops were sweat, falling hot from his brow. Albert pressed his mouth shut. It was just an animal. Just a fat ill-tempered little animal. He pushed away the memory of bloodied fur. Honesty pushed it back - added her hands, shaking above the broken leg, cradling the whimpering nose. Still he kept his teeth together.

‘Is the Queen hurt?’ asked Melbourne.

‘No.’ A shade in the words made Albert scowl - abruptly stare. ‘No. The Queen is not hurt. I would never do harm to a woman.’

‘You would never -!’

Melbourne stopped himself; turned the swing of his arm into a clench. Paget swallowed.

‘Gentlemen, please, let us not -’

‘Your highness, I shall ask you one more time where the Queen is.’

Albert floundered. His rage lifted higher. He could take his horse and gallop back into the forest to fetch his cousin and her stupid dog. Alone, without this meeting, he might have done it. Now he could not. He would not, because Melbourne would. Melbourne would search the whole forest until he was with the Queen. Melbourne would not have left her there, no matter what she had said.

The prince was a child again. He felt as though he were looking at the Prime Minister not slightly downward but upward, far up from puny height. He hunched his shoulders. Guilt returned; shame suddenly with it. They knotted, swelled the envy and the hating rage into a living twisting cornered thing and forced it out.

‘Why don’t you go and find her for yourself?’

Melbourne grabbed him by his coat. Lord Alfred gasped, snatched at the politician’s arms, braided collar - pulled him back with both limp fists. Treason, his mind bleated, treason, treason.

‘Let go, let go, sir! Stop - my God - let him go!’

Albert shoved at Melbourne’s hands. Through an instant of swirling fear he had lost the ground. Then his heels crunched down and he was staggering, flailing for balance. His arm landed against the Prime Minister’s shoulder. From the sleeve a scrap of torn fabric protruded. The prince felt a last flick of the older man’s disdain.

‘Can you never leave your shirt intact?’

And Melbourne was gone, and Lord Alfred felt he might collapse, and Albert straightened his coat and his shaking legs and walked into the castle.

Melbourne rode like a newcomer to horseback - jerky and tight - almost standing in the stirrups, combing through the trees. Their dense crowd stretched on, and in the clearings he found no-one. He did not shout. How could she shout back with an injured dog in her arms? Unless, he readied himself, unless Dash was dead. He clicked to his horse and their canter approached a gallop. The empty trees whirled by.

Victoria had cried a short time. Even when she realised that Albert had gone, that he had left them in the middle of the woods, her tears had been for Dash. He thumped his tail for her. His dear little leg had a piece of bone poking out and when she touched him he still licked the air and pushed his nose into her fingers. She tended to him with what knowledge she had and cried hard only as she lifted him and the hurt of his whining spilled over into her. She had ridden a docile mare, just possible to lead while carrying the spaniel. Mounting would jog his leg too much. She could see white all round his eyes; white froth on his panting tongue.

From a long way she heard the hoofbeats, and hoped, and hoped. A glimpse of horse and rider through the trees - a wash of relief. She pressed a kiss to the dog’s silken head.

Melbourne pulled up beside her. He remembered the early months when she would have been lost in her fright. Now she had used a stick to splint Dash’s leg and her brooch to fix the rough bandage. She held him securely on an arm cramping with his weight. Her other arm was through the horse’s reins. They were moving at the slowest shuffle. She looked up and her eyes were dry.

‘Lord M,’ she said. ‘Oh, Lord M. Please lead my horse.’

He dismounted and took both sets of reins. She walked on, slightly ahead, talking to Dash. She tried for reassuring sounds - hums and burbles to soothe him, kinder than the noise of his own sad whimpers.

They walked through the trees in a silent group. The leaves stifled the horses’ steps, and Victoria murmured to her dog, and Melbourne held the reins and watched her profile above Dash’s sweet face. An ending had come. A door had shut that would not open again. She looked round at him just once, and under the fear in her eyes was a certainty. Under her skin a shaded light was burning steady.

They reached the castle halfway through the afternoon. Entering the courtyard, they saw Leopold’s coach rolling away; the Duchess waving. Ernest stood on the grass. He came to Victoria, and stroked Dash. He could not meet her gaze.

Lord Alfred was running toward them. Victoria turned, and Melbourne reached out, bent his arm under hers where she held the dog. Her hand found his; linked her thumb around his thumb. Her back was rigid and her voice was clear.

‘Yes, Lord Alfred? Do you wish to tell me something?’

‘Your Majesty. Yes. Or - no. I am afraid to say that the prince has left.’


	4. Lamplight

The library clock sent a single chime into the darkness of the castle. Melbourne leaned his head on his hand. Too tense from the day to fall asleep, he was organising his Chrysostom notes. A single candle burned on the desk. The room was a vault of gleaming shadows.

He wrote with a scarf around his neck. Gusts pawed at the windowpanes; sneaking draughts rustled the notes under his pen, furled their edges. The spectacles he wore for night-time work fogged faintly as he breathed.

A clock outside the library began its tune. Melbourne chuckled. The mechanism was labouring through the Westminster Chimes. The second quarter wheezed out. With the third, light came bouncing along the hallway. He looked up - stood up - and between the final quarter and the hour’s stroke Victoria ran over the threshold, and the lamp she carried threw a wash of gold across the floor.

‘Lord M, Dash is sick.’

He was beside her before she could speak again. Her eyes locked to him, huge with worry. He pulled the scarf from his neck; tucked it around her shoulders. She wore a wrap no thicker than the nightgown beneath. The bare feet under its hem seemed childishly small. Small too the hand she held out. He could not make himself hesitate. He took her hand and ran with her.

‘His leg is hot. He keeps trying to chew at it. His nose feels dry.’

‘Will he drink anything?’

‘No. Nothing. He pants as if he were thirsty, but he won’t take water.’

Rushing into her apartments, she remembered where Dash was. She wavered only briefly. Melbourne’s hand wrapped hers, and she did not want to let go. When they reached her bedchamber, her dresser curtsied and goggled. He raised his eyes to the unseen heavens.

‘Ma’am, I should not...’

The thud of Dash’s tail was weaker. Victoria knelt down by the basket and touched her nose to his. Slow warmth spread through Melbourne’s chest.

‘Stay with Her Majesty,’ he said to the servant. Skerrett nodded. The Queen shook her head, face against the dog’s. She turned onto her hip to fit both arms around him.

‘No, Lord M. We must take him with us.’

‘We? You ought not to go, Ma’am.’

She looked at him, almost upside down. Her hem had lifted - one leg lay slim and pale against the basket. Melbourne took too long to remember that he should not be seeing this. He should not be in this room. It rocked him, how simple this felt, how unstrange that her skin was bare, that he stood by the bed she slept in, that under his shirt and open waistcoat she could see the shape of his body and it had not occurred to him to button the waistcoat or tighten the cravat over his throat. He looked away, and her voice drew his eyes straight back.

‘We,’ she said, ‘we are going.’

Skerrett sidled into the next room. If the little dog had not been so poorly, she would have been stuffing her handkerchief into her mouth to cork the laughter. She took another glimpse at the Queen, in her nightgown and no shoes, arguing with the leader of her government in her bedchamber. Such a handsome man. The dresser picked out a warm dress, warm boots - a pretty bonnet.

****

‘But, Lord M, you know we could not have left Dash behind.’

The spaniel was curled in her lap as the carriage rolled out of the castle grounds. Melbourne sighed, and reached across to stroke the limp head.

‘Ma’am, I should have ridden out with him and found help.’

When he looked away from Dash, he found her smiling at him. A smile so tired still dimpled her cheeks. ‘He likes you very much,’ she answered. ‘But I would not have let you go alone.’

The wind tugged at the carriage lamps, making the shadows leap wildly. Black swung back and forth across their faces. They looked at each other through the dark and the glaring light.

The heavy wheels rumbled across the town. Passing into its outskirts, Melbourne rapped his knuckles on the wall of the carriage, and the coachman whipped up the horses. Dash lay listless. Wherever the Queen's hand rested on his fur it made him shiver with pain. She bent her head over him and closed her stinging eyes.

Melbourne moved to the seat beside her. She felt his weight on the cushions. Blindly she reached for him. Her hand met his cheek; his unshaven jaw. He touched the breath of a kiss to her fingers. From the skin his lips brushed, strength threaded down her veins. She laid her hand against the side of his neck. He did not draw it away. In her touch he was holding on to her.

The road grew rough. The wind rattled the doors. Dash whimpered. Victoria tried to gather him closer and he struggled, cried sharp as glass. She could not help her oldest friend, her first friend, after six years of his endless love. Her hands hovered over him. If only she could pull the fracture into her own bones. His whines shredded her heart.

‘Lord M,’ she gasped. ‘Dash used to swim with me in the sea. He used to run after my ponies and try to climb up the stirrups.’

‘What a brave fellow, Ma’am.’

‘Yes - wasn’t he? - so very brave. Yes, dearest. Such a brave little man. Someone will make you better soon, very soon, dear Dash...’

The carriage jolted. Dash slipped along her skirt. Melbourne caught him. Their arms linked around him, held him in place on both their laps.

The coachman shouted from the box. They were beginning to slow. Cobbles juddered the wheels, and other dogs barked a warning fanfare. The carriage halted. The Prime Minister jumped out. The Queen hugged Dash to her chest and Melbourne lifted them both down.

‘Ma’am, I should...’ - go in alone, you should not walk into this unknown house, we should not walk in together. All he said would be useless. ‘Ma’am, we should not give our names.’

‘What if they know us from the portraits?’

‘They might know Dash from his portraits.’

He won her tremulous smile. Dress billowing, she hurried up to the house, and he followed. With well-practised speed they were in a white room, Dash lay on the tabletop and the doctor picked off the bandage - wrinkled his nose, waved out a hand toward the manservant. ‘Instruments,’ he called, 'sedative,' and to the Queen, 'Don’t be afraid. This seems a sturdy little chap. Let your husband take you to the parlour.’

Melbourne smoothed his face into blandness. Husband. His ears rang. Wife, Victoria thought, and the glove burned on her ringless hand.

‘No,’ she replied, loud and imperious. ‘I shall stay.’

Melbourne found the man looking at him. Looking and waiting. He was her husband, and would decide whether his young wife should stay and see knives and blood. His wife who wore the heaviest crown of the world. And he could not nod, not straight away, he could not obey the woman to whom he knelt at every meeting - because he feared she might watch a cruel death.

He leaned down. The doctor was listening and glancing between them. Quiet enough for only her, thinking the Ma’am he could not say, he whispered ‘Are you certain?’

She gazed at the table, at the little silky creature she had loved so long. She turned her head and her face was so near Melbourne’s that she saw herself in his eyes. In her eyes he saw a clutching urgency. He laid his hand on her back and felt it straighten. She would stay. But she stared up at him, and asked in silence.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We shall stay.’

She went to Dash’s head. He went to her side. The doctor drew a scalpel from its case, and before he poised it over the dog he took one more look at the man and the woman, and thought of the ancient castle that watched over Windsor.


	5. Home

Hours had passed before the doctor finished. Victoria had held Dash still when he struggled against the sedation. She had talked to him, sung sore-voiced lullabies. Dizzy with fear at his shallowing breathing, she had pushed her fingers to his chest, searching, willing his pulse forward.

Melbourne had helped her now and then. His height let him lean further over the table. The dog’s unwounded legs were covered by cloth, but they kicked free twice and the second time his claws left a long track across the Queen’s wrist. The doctor replaced the cloths, and while she went on stroking Dash and whispering to him the Prime Minister wiped the beads of blood from her skin. He caught the jar the old man threw to him; drew its ointment along the scratches.

The broken bone was splinted and bound with tough bandages. Dash lay groggy and quiet. Victoria floated in her relief. The doctor sluiced off his red hands.

‘Glad you brought him to me. Don’t let him use that leg for a good five weeks. And make sure he drinks, and takes these powders. Now, where should I bring the bill?’

They kept their eyes away from each other. ‘I would rather pay it now,’ Melbourne answered. ‘What’s your total?’

‘As you like, then.’ A small smile appeared in the doctor’s beard. ‘I’ll write it out.’

He waited as they climbed into the carriage. The crest on its doors showed clear under the gate’s lamp. Another thin smile creased his face. He lit his pipe, and watched them trundle away down the lane.

Inside the carriage, Melbourne had not bothered to sit on the other seat. He leaned on the cushions and Victoria leaned on his arm, her feet tucked up to the side wall. Between them Dash slept easily.

Victoria’s eyes were closed. Her hand lay relaxed over the dog’s side. Melbourne wondered if dreams were passing behind her peaceful face. Who would feature in them? Surely Dash would. Perhaps Albert. The Queen had not mentioned him since his departure. Her rest seemed too serene for a dream of ripped shirts and sullen disapproval. Or abandonment in the depths of the woods. Her head was pillowed against his shoulder. She had untied her bonnet, and her hair smelled like gardenias. A few locks were falling over her face. Lightly he drew them back.

She smiled. Drifting at the shore of sleep, his touch was a gentle rousing. She opened her eyes.

‘Are we almost home?’

‘Halfway there.’

She raised her arm. Her hand passed his eyes - he felt a pull behind his ears, and his view of the carriage grew a fraction less clear. He turned. The reading glasses he had never taken off were on her face.

His laugh made Dash stir. His lips twinged with the effort of stifling it. She held up three fingers.

‘Five,’ he said. Her grin was a sun against the dark. His private sunlight, here in the rattling carriage, glowing where only he saw. She quirked her brows; blinked at the extra focus she did not need.

‘Your eyes won’t like them, Ma’am.’

‘I like everything that’s yours.’

But she let him take them. For a still moment, his hands framed her face. They looked. They stared, learning features they had learned like their own. In the shifting shadow, they lay open. Neither had to look aside.

The carriage reached the castle drive. Melbourne shaped his palms around her jaw. Then he drew them away.

‘I should walk up, Ma’am.’

‘You should not, Lord M. This is your carriage.’

‘You know why I should walk.’

‘I know that it is dark,’ and the stress she dropped on ‘dark’ surprised another chuckle from him. He ran a hand along the spaniel’s back, glancing from window to window. No early workers passed the carriage.

From the coach-house, they slipped indoors, cautious as thieves. Victoria’s soft burden was beginning to trouble her. She said nothing - Melbourne saw her back bending. She was too small to carry Dash through all the weeks the doctor had ordered.

On the staircase her steps grew less sure. The hours at the operating table had ended with giddy joy. Now the rest was crowding up behind. She saw leaves blowing through the branches, and blood on the ground, and Ernest grimacing and Mama standing in horrified bewilderment as the King’s carriage drove Leopold and Albert out of the castle. Marry Melbourne, the prince had snapped. The doctor had said - your husband. Let your husband shield you.

She stopped and Melbourne stopped with his hand at her elbow.

‘Ma’am, should I carry him?’

‘No. No, it’s...’

Her voice crumbled. She turned and pressed her face into his shirt.

The tears which hiccupped from her tore through him like shot. He did not look at the empty staircase, empty corridors. He pulled her closer. He pulled her tight to him, arm around her waist, hand around the nape of her neck. Dash snuffled and nosed her cheek. Melbourne held them both.

Crying washed the day from her. It hurt - gulping sobs, ribs aching - and it cleaned. She could cry because he held her up. She could let herself break because he was warm and sure and he would fix her fragments back together.

Dash started to whine. The brown eyes watched her with a mournful sympathy. Her tears were marking his fur. The Prime Minister stroked the furrows away; rubbed the dog’s ears. Their fingers met caressing him.

‘Lord M. I need you to stay with me.’

Need. She knew it was not want. He knew. He nodded against her hair.

She had cried a patch into his shirt. A curve like a wrong-sided heart. Through the wet fabric she kissed his skin.


	6. Sleep

Skerrett had waited by the fire. Ears sharp for footsteps, she heard them approaching. First she saw the tearstains - and then Dash moved, and she breathed out, said ‘I’m very glad, Your Majesty,’ and Victoria gave her a damp smile.

The politician’s hands rested on the Queen’s shoulders. The dresser eyed him.

‘Your Majesty, should I...what would Your Majesty like me to do?’

‘Turn down the bed, please, Skerrett.’

Skerrett obeyed. Wary memories came of other beds, poorer linens. She used to scrub the girls’ sheets in the mornings. She peered over her shoulder. The Prime Minister did not seem like he meant to leave. He was speaking quietly to the Queen.

‘I’ll be in the parlour. Let me have him.’

Dash went calm into Melbourne’s arms. The inner door drew closed behind them. Victoria looked at her dresser. Her weary eyes pulled Skerrett toward her.

‘I’ll say whatever you like, Your Majesty. Or not say anything.’

‘Say...say I am not to be disturbed tomorrow. I caught cold in the woods.’

Victoria stood completely still. It was no harder to take off her dress than if she were one of her own old dolls. Skerrett worried; peeked at her as she unlaced, unhooked, unpinned. She had seen many girls wait by beds. Some ill with fright, some bold in their brittle confidence. Some had waited so many times before that it was mundane; they might as well sew a hem, cook a meal. Only when she went to fetch a nightgown did Victoria say, traced with a first faint nervousness, ‘A very nice one, please, Skerrett.’

In silk and lace, she looked down at herself. To the dresser's mind, the mahogany hair brushed loose made a prettier crown than diamonds and gold. Abruptly Victoria reached out. Her arm bridged the lamplight. Skerrett thought of presumption, impertinence, but the blue eyes were growing wistful. She patted the Queen’s hand. Flesh and bone like her own rougher fingers.

‘Is there anything else Your Majesty wants?’

‘The lamps...put them out before you go.’

Skerrett walked down the chilly corridor. Two thoughts pulled at her. The kindness of the Queen, her gifts of beautiful collars, her funny gossip before the dressing room mirror. And then the enormity of whatever it was that would happen - that she herself had seen - the enormity that she had become some diagonal part of it.

Victoria knocked on the parlour door. The quiet lay deep. The firelight glimmered along the door’s panels. Her fist was lifted to knock again when she heard the rustle of fabric. He was speaking to Dash. He was turning the handle. The door opened and he was there in front of her. There in his loose shirt, barefoot.

Nothing she could say but ‘Lord M.’

Nothing he wanted to say but ‘Ma’am.’

He gazed so that the picture would never leave him. Her kindling blush, the curtain of her hair, her hand raised for the second knock. In the air he brought his hand to hers, back to back. Their fingers wove together.

Dash licked their hands. They stepped closer to stroke him. Melbourne leaned his head against Victoria’s. The spaniel wiggled himself snugly into place between them.

They carried him to the bed. He curled up in the space above the pillows. His tail thumped an invitation. Victoria sat on the edge of the mattress. The distant fire left the blanket twilit; the canopy over her starless black. Clearer than Melbourne’s face, she saw his shadow. It drew along her body. He sat down on the other side.

With the dip of the mattress, drowsiness wavered into him. She was already yawning, a tiny sound as she rubbed at her face. He watched her hair wisp and coil against the pale nightgown. A last fragile thought mumbled - stop - stop this - go to your own bed, go away from her. She had cried into his shirt. She had said ‘stay with me’. He would stay where she needed him. Even if the roll of his sins now numbered treason, he would stay. The greater treason would be to leave her alone.

Victoria glanced at the scratches on her hand. They smelled of the ointment he had used. Dear Dash had fallen asleep, the splint stretched out along the top of her pillow. She might have been sitting by his cold body. He was alive, alive and snoring and paddling two feathery legs in some dream of biscuits and slow rabbits. If she had lost him, she would have cried forever. She would have lost him if not for Melbourne.

Her gratitude opened like flight. It swept past her nerves. Her blush bloomed into glowing heat. Melbourne could not brace himself before she scrambled across the bed and her arms were in a stranglehold around him, her weight pushing him backwards. They fell onto the pillows. She kissed his cheek. She kissed the greying hair at his temple. When he smoothed her hair off her face she pressed her hands to his and laughed down at him, a laugh with the echo of past tears. Now the tears were in his eyes. Seeing them, she quietened. Against his chest he felt the deep wingbeat of her heart.

‘Lord M,’ she whispered. ‘I am here.’

Her hair slipped from his hands and fell around his face. For the final time in the long night and the longer day, they smiled at each other. Once, twice, he touched his lips to the tip of her nose. Then he lifted her - let her curl in beside him, her head on his arm, her arm round his neck. Exhaustion settled over them. As the clocks struck five, all three were sleeping.


	7. Wake

The light through the curtains had not disturbed them. Skerrett tiptoed in to stoke the fire and leave another jug of water. She held her breath as she looked to the bed.

Both were clothed. The Queen lay on her back. Usually in the mornings Skerrett would see her curled tight, hands to her face as if in defence. Today she slept flat. Her arms were spread out and up. One hand just touched the Prime Minister’s chin.

He lay on his side, arm under the pillow. His other hand rested over the Queen’s stomach. It left the dresser in a brief sweating shock. She would know. Would she? She knew Her Majesty’s skin and moods. Setting the water down, she counted on her fingers. No, then. All the same, she stared. Later, breakfasting in the servants’ hall, hearing Mr Penge’s sour commentary on the vanishing Germans, she caught herself thinking: wouldn’t it be a pretty little thing?

Melbourne lay half awake. Deep from his lazy quiet, he felt the Queen shifting. The first sight in the new day was her face. It was rest enough to lie and look at her. Her lashes just touched her cheeks, dusk on their brush of pink. Her hair was spread across the sheet between them. He ran his palm along the burnished softness. He gathered all her colours to his memory.

Her brows wrinkled. The tender note of her breathing was altering. She shivered, arms curling in. ‘Mm,’ from her pressed lips, ‘no,’ and she turned her head. He lifted his hand from - her stomach. It had rested on her stomach. He had been holding her as if - he sat up. Was this why she struggled in her sleep? Suddenly he was raw. When her face trembled again he reached only to her shoulder.

It was his touch, pulling the cold away. She knew it with closed eyes. They opened and she saw his face, and smiled, and reached. Arms thick with sleep, she pulled him down to her. He was heavy and solid. He was real. His eyes were a sunlit sea.

‘I dreamed you were gone,’ she murmured. ‘I dreamed I couldn’t find you.’

His relief was a gasp that could not reach his throat. The rawness grew. He did not meet her gaze - he kissed her wrists, let her cradle his face between the drowsy warmth of her hands. At last she could draw them through his hair. The curls were dense between her fingers. Their shape wound back as she released them. She combed them again, watching them settle. One fingertip followed his hairline, down his temple, onto his cheekbone. Even if he did not have this face - this face that still shocked her, still made her flush - his features would be written in her veins. Her blood would sing his face and voice and touch.

She wished she were his mirror. She wished he saw himself through her thoughts. Then no old betrayal, no grief, could weight him. The hurt was always in him. She heard its silence behind his words; its echo behind his silence. Even now she felt the ghosts of his grief. And the worry, no ghost. It lived, in his downturned eyes.

She pushed herself up. As he sat back, she shuffled forwards. Her hips tucked between his knees. She leaned until he had to look at her; had to link his arms around her, to hold her up. Through his worry her smile dug its too-easy path. They were here in her rumpled bed - her dresser knew, his valet would guess - but she was here in the circle of his arms. She lit up his shadows.

‘Good morning, Lord M.’

‘Good morning, Ma’am.’

She laid her hands flat to his chest. He watched them explore, feeling what she could not see. She followed the bow of his collarbones. The ball of her thumb fitted the hollow in their centre. She found his ribs, and some unmapped part of her stirred and sharpened because they rose more quickly. Between the shirt’s ties her fingers met his chest. She caught her nails on the stitching, ran them through the fine hairs so dark against the fabric. She glanced up. His pupils were black and wide as a storm sky. They trapped her. Her hands slipped loose down his stomach.

Abruptly he grasped her arms. He was swallowing, tensing. She pressed closer and he bent inward, holding her back. He could bear it when her face was all curiosity, all questions. Now there was an answer growing surer - a seeking intelligence in her hands. She was trying to free them. He held tighter. Their fingers became a twisting battle. The tension burned up along his spine.

‘No - no, Ma’am, don’t.’

In her mind, a life's learning chimed to his words. A thousand snow-white edicts, testaments of shame to frighten her away from this, from what this must be, the pulling haste, the melting back of thought and caution. But I want, her heart rushed, I want. This cannot be wrong. This is the greatest rightness I shall ever feel. I want. I will.

Melbourne saw each surging thought. Her hands fought his - forcing past his hold. The strength of her reign spanned continents and oceans. Here, now, wearing her nightgown and her hair, she was stronger. The power of her blazed through his bones. She would walk into the flames and they would burn together.

He caught her face between his hands. She bent into him. A moment wide as time, feather gentle. A blink of fear. Then his hand covered the back of her head and he opened her mouth with his. His tongue drew along her lip and she was falling away. He fell into her rhythm and it was his own.

Time flooded inward. All their stares and laughs, anger, joy, talking whole days by. Leicester and Elizabeth. Crying, dancing. The rooks in the sky. Their kiss consumed. It dragged deeper and deeper. She wrapped her legs around him. Their hands clutched to bruise. No breath, nothing but the shuddering heat and more, more. She lost where her body ended and his began. He kissed her as if he could bind them into one.

Another long press of their mouths. The heat still coiled between them, sparking, embers for another fire. But they had no breath. They clung to each other and took the first shallow gasps; the air washed sweet by the storm.

‘You,’ she whispered. ‘You are too clever for me.’

He kissed her damp shoulder. She did not need to know his body’s strain. This was enough. She, in his lap, a glimmer of sweat over her face, was torture and peace.

‘Ma’am, we may have embarrassed someone.’

They looked at Dash. He was obliviously sleeping. Melbourne reached past her to scratch the dappled stomach. She ran her hand along his arm.

‘Lord M. I had another dream.’

She flickered to shyness - looked through the swing of her hair. He parted it.

‘What was your dream about?’

She shook her head; kissed a laugh into his fingers. ‘It was a good dream,’ and she pulled her hair down, measuring it against him. He turned it around his neck. She grasped the ends. Their noses brushed. 

‘Now, Ma’am, it seems I must stay with you.’

‘Exactly, Lord M.’

Slow and quiet, they left the bed. They washed side by side. As Melbourne opened the curtains and the autumn sun gilded his profile, Victoria smiled. She had dreamed of them in sunlight. A room full of gold, sheets floating like a cloud. He had kissed her face, and lain beside her. His hand had rested on her swollen belly.


	8. Drina

‘You must write to Leopold and beg his pardon. In my life I have never been so mortified. And your cousin! How have you treated him? Shame on you, Drina!’

The Duchess wept into her handkerchief. Victoria held on to Dash. The mumble of his growl ran an ostinato under her mother’s sobs. The splinted leg pointed useless in midair; he still bristled. She held him tighter and ignored the low ache of her back.

‘Mama, I have made my decision.’

‘Your decision is not correct! After all the love I have given to you, all of my patience, you ought to attend to my judgment. But you would never let me guide you.’

Victoria turned away. Yes, Mother - after all you gave. She remembered the friendless years in the cage of the Kensington System. She remembered Conroy’s disdain, day after year, the Duchess silent or parroting him or laughing along. They had wounded some intrinsic part of her that had healed askew. Perhaps not healed at all. Her mother broke it open with each empty talk of love.

‘Drina, you must look at me when I speak to you!’

‘There is no must about it.’ You have not earned it. My eyes are my own. ‘I told you I have made my decision. That is all.’

‘Well, I - truly, I - truly you have grown most vain. You might be Queen of all the world, and you would still owe courtesy to your mother.’

Victoria sat down on a sofa. Her back was crumpling, frail as paper. Dash floundered in her lap. If all his legs worked, he would be doing what the Duchess hated: prancing in front of her, barking, jumping at her skirts. The Queen shushed him. She had envied Dash when he first wedged himself into her heart. Her words never changed her mother. Her words were nothing at all to Conroy. She wished she could do as her darling did, run and nip, bark until everyone had to hear and listen.

‘Mama,’ she said. ‘Please. I tried to like Albert.’

‘You tried? Why only tried? Try was not good enough!’

The spaniel was struggling hard. Victoria pressed her face into his back. Mama, she thought, oh Mama, come and sit by me, please come and tell me I was brave. Tell me Albert talked and talked of music and art and progress, all the things he loves best, and then looked bored whenever I mentioned Dash or Lord M. Tell me he was cruel to them both. Tell me he found fault with every little piece of me until I looked at myself and everything I saw was bad. Tell me he held a knife before my chest.

The Duchess moved up to the sofa. She thought her daughter was crying. Certainly the wretched dog was growling. She wanted to stroke the Queen’s hair - but not to risk her hand near the vengeful teeth.

‘Oh, dear. My poor little girl. We can still put things right.’

Victoria lifted her head; looked straight up at her mother. Her dry eyes startled the Duchess. They seemed the eyes of a long life.

‘Mama. Albert was even younger than I expected him to be.’

‘What do you mean? He is twenty years old! He is a man!’

‘I am twenty as well. You tell me I am a child.’

The Duchess wheeled away from her. ‘Do not make a silly argument,’ she snapped. ‘Albert has great intellect. He has a noble heart.’

‘He did not show its nobility to me.’

‘Another silly argument! You should have forgiven him.’

‘Why?’

Faltering, the Duchess grew angrier. For so many years she had seen her daughter as clay, as paintless canvas. Somehow Victoria was growing into a shape she could not define. A shape not of her moulding.

‘Drina, you must not hold this grudge.’

‘I don't want a grudge. It’s only that I know Albert better now. When we were in the woods, he showed me himself.’

Her mother turned greenish white. ‘No,’ she gasped, ‘that cannot be true!’

‘It is true. I saw his character most clearly.’

‘His...his character?...oh, beware what you say, child,’ and the Duchess put a hand to her chest. When red overtook her pallor, Victoria understood - felt her own flush. More thoughts that she wished she could utter. Oh, Mama. A man kissed me in my bed and I wanted to see everything of him. I wanted to do what my ladies whisper about.

The Duchess sat down at the other end of the sofa.

‘Men,' she said, 'men are slow to learn their own natures. They do not feel as deeply. I know - I know, my sweet one - that Albert will come to understand you better.’

‘He will not have the chance.’

With something close to indignation, the Duchess saw how her daughter had altered. That little sickly petulant creature had shunned her for Lehzen, and now a woman sat and looked at her; looked with the Duke’s translucent eyes. Her stubbornness was his too. The Duchess had married a soldier and the spirit of war was rising in his child.

‘Drina, I shall warn you once more of the most severe mistake you are making.’

Her daughter reached for her hand. She let it be taken, but she would not hold the smaller whiter fingers. Drina should be feeling shame. The Duchess did not like to find its sting within herself.

‘Mama. I have heard you. Please hear me too.’

‘Everything you have said I have listened to, child, for heaven’s sake!’

The Queen sighed. She was losing her words. Quiet, they shouted across the years, Mama and Conroy. Quiet, girl. You are wrong. You do not know what you mean. You are wrong, wrong.

The dog whined. Carefully she turned him, so that her mother could see his leg.

‘Albert knew this was broken, Mama. He only helped for a moment. He insulted me, and left us in the woods, and he never came back.’

The Duchess wished abruptly that she had held her daughter’s hand.

‘Drina...oh. I was not told.’

Victoria drew his velvet ears through her fingers. The feeling in the air had changed. Her mother could not quite look at her.

‘Drina, I do not condone how Albert has behaved. He should have apologised.’

Victoria waited. Yet, the Duchess would say. Now the excuse.

‘And yet, my child...you should not condemn him for this one act.’

Resentment made the Queen slouch - etched the pain deeper into her spine. The woman who had brought her into life ought to understand. Albert’s one act had crystallised him. Balancing Dash against her shoulder, she got to her feet.

‘Albert,’ she replied, ‘my cousin Albert thinks of noble things. I believe there is great goodness in him. But his goodness - those noble things - he will not give them to me.’

She moved toward the door. The Duchess rustled after her.

‘Oh, my Drina, think more on this. Your uncle Leopold and I have set such store by him. This was unfortunate - I cannot condone such conduct - but you must not desert him. I believe he thought highly of you. He would make for you a better husband than the Grand Duke, my dear one. Better than so many others. He could not be perfect! You cannot expect a man to be truly kind, truly gentle. There is no such man.’

‘There is, Mama.’

The Queen opened the door. Dash licked her chin. She hugged him to her, kissed his nose with its tickling whiskers. He cushioned her against the explosion.

‘Alexandrina! What have you said to me? What man is this? Drina, stop!’

Her mother hurried after her down the staircase. Victoria almost stumbled. Where was he? He had summoned his Cabinet to Windsor and would hold tonight's meeting in the Great Hall. Please, she prayed, oh God, please let him be there. She reached the foot of the stairs - ‘Drina, where are you going? You must explain to me now what you meant! What foolish thing have you done?’ - and she could see the doors into the Hall, and she ran for them. And as she reached them Melbourne stepped out through them. She wanted to run straight into his arms’ sanctuary. She stopped in front of him. She mouthed ‘Help me.’

He glanced at her mother, hastening up behind. ‘Your Highness,’ he bowed. ‘I’m sorry to take the Queen, but she is needed at this meeting.’

The Duchess blinked. Her curls bobbled as she turned to Victoria.

‘You did not tell me of this. You are attending the Cabinet?’

‘Yes, Mama. I have wished for some time to do so. The ministers extended my first invitation today.’

The lies tumbled out, bitterly easy. Melbourne reached for Dash. Taking him, he could touch her arms, her hands. Her fingers were cold. They clung to his.

‘The Ministers will arrive soon, Ma’am.’

The Duchess stared. In his hold Dash was wagging and licking.

‘Drina. Pay attention to the Cabinet when they tell you things.’

‘Yes, Mama.’

The Queen slipped into the hall. Her expression made it hard for Melbourne to bow to her mother again. He straightened up swiftly. When Victoria spoke of her childhood, the sound was like a draught through a desolate place.

‘Your Highness,’ he said, stroking Dash. 'I wish you a pleasant evening.’

‘One moment, Lord Melbourne.’

Behind him he could hear the Queen stamping across the Hall. He kept his eyes friendly as the Duchess frowned. The German made him think of Caro. Not of Caro in hysterical rage, a scythe to tear every life she touched - no - the Duchess’ anger was no less sullen than Albert's. It was her self-pity that reminded him. She would do every harm and remain the prey of an unjust world.

She was trying to look past him. He did not move.

‘I had more to say to my daughter, Melbourne.’

‘The Cabinet also has much to say to her.’

‘Oh - well, then - tell her to come and see me afterwards.’

He inclined his head. I shall not, he thought. The Duchess swung a step back. The suspicion worming through her took root.

‘Lord Melbourne, I must do what is good for Her Majesty.’

‘So must I, Your Highness.’

His voice opened further than he realised. It told her too much. Everything was too much - his accursedly handsome face; his height; the dog so contented in his arms.

A new-old sadness came to her. Twenty years ago she had carried a hasty pregnancy, a fragile baby, the wrong sex. She already had the children she wanted, from her first marriage. This birth was to please the English throne, new heirs to replace poor Princess Charlotte and her boy born dead. Death stalked again and the Duke was gone. His brother the King lost child after child. Soon her daughter’s tiny head wore a phantom crown.

Conroy had entered her life as a boundless blessing. He had become her fortress. She felt for him as she had not felt for the Duke. She loved the safety of him. Needing him, settling herself in him, thoughts for the child competed with all her grateful depending thoughts of Conroy. She shared his offence when the princess disliked him. When he was harsh with Drina, he had her sympathy, and it only sometimes twinged that across the bedroom at night she heard her daughter crying.

That soft twinge of wrong was with her now. She dismissed it in a jerk of her chin, a whisk of her glossy skirts. She had done her best. She had tried to make her Drina a fine woman. If the girl had complaints - well - she had been the most difficult child, impossible to teach - they had both done their best, herself and Conroy.

The Prime Minister let his eyes cool. Each time he saw this woman, her daughter surprised him more. Some of the selfishness had stitched to Victoria, but in her it did not grow from malice. Maybe it grew from what her mother and that oily climber had done to her. They had denied her so much that now she guarded her wishes with too great a strength; too great a courage.

‘Your Highness, I must go to the Cabinet. I beg you will excuse me.’

He began to close the door. The Duchess held it.

‘My daughter is wholly innocent, Melbourne. She comprehends nothing of the world.’

He tried not to guess what colour she would turn if she knew. When they left Victoria’s rooms they had checked the corridor - empty - and they had paused. The Queen’s hair was slightly lopsided. She had taught him how to plait it and fix the pins, and worn his second attempt out into the day. She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. He walked away backwards, not for protocol; only to see her and her smile and her crooked plaits for as long as possible before he had to turn the corner.

‘Pardon my disagreeing,’ he said. ‘Innocence does not render the Queen ignorant. And I believe there will always be purity in her nature.’

‘Why, I - what would you - will you teach me my own daughter’s character, sir?’

‘No. I shall hold a Cabinet debate. Her Majesty will be an asset and an ornament to our meeting. Good evening.'

Before the door closed in her face, the Duchess hurried away. More than ever she needed Conroy. She missed his advice as well as his company.

A final thought darted to her. She shrugged it off. Later in the day, it would return; follow her through the castle like a lonely child. Those tears Victoria had cried, alone - those tears her mother had not dried - they had washed a valley between her and her little girl, and the Duchess no longer knew how to cross it.

In the Great Hall, Victoria stood before a suit of armour. It was polished to a grim gleam. She thumbed the sword's blade. Keen enough to cut.

‘Lord M,’ she called. He was already approaching.

‘Ma’am?’

‘Is my mother gone?’

‘Yes, she is. I fear I was rude to her.’

‘Good. I’m glad.’

She stood as rigid as the metal. He bedded Dash down among a chair’s cushions, and went to stand behind her. She tipped her head back against his shoulder.

‘I think I need that,’ and she nodded toward the suit. He slipped his arms around her waist.

‘I think you don’t, Ma’am.’

He breathed in the gardenia smell of her hair. She drew her fingertips back and forth between his knuckles.

‘You might wear it, Lord M. Against the Tories. Maybe against Uncle Leopold.’

‘An excellent idea.’

‘Would it be very heavy?’

‘Certainly. However, I am strong, Ma’am. Almost as strong as you.’

She turned her face to his neck; closed her eyes. In stillness, he looked up. The rows of giant paintings far above held centuries of thrones and sceptres. The empty metal knights stood like the shells of kings. The crests of her ancestry bled down the ceiling, down the walls. All this for her narrow frame to bear.

He wished he could prop her up. He wished he could take everything he knew and had and was, and build it into her. The best he could do was to kiss her hairline and warm her cold fingers in his.

When her eyes opened, they were clear as dew. She turned in his arms.

‘Lord M, I think you must call in the ministers.’

‘When you’re ready, Ma’am.’

‘I am ready.’

The Cabinet had been walking in the court. They gathered to bow over the Queen’s hand. Some concealed their disapproval. Some did not. Others, pleased, patted her spaniel and asked after his leg. She knew most of them through her ladies. Those who peered doubtfully from her to Melbourne did not disappoint her too much. This was a kind of haven. No Mama, no Albert, no Leopold. Even if the ministers would not all smile at her, she would rather be here in the Whig powerheart than with any of her family.

‘Well,’ said Melbourne, ‘Your Majesty, my lords, gentlemen. Shall we begin?’

His gaze caught hers. His lips slanted. Before he looked away to shake the Chancellor’s hand, he turned his eyes to the chair beside his own.

She carried Dash with her. A ripple of amusement passed through the Cabinet as she sat down and the dog sat awkwardly up, his splinted leg on the tabletop.

‘A speech, young sir?’ asked the Chancellor.

Victoria touched Dash’s chin. Usually he ignored the cues, but when she whispered ‘Speak!’ he gave one sharp yelp. Then he lolled his tongue out as the politicians laughed, knocked their fists on the wood. One or two cheered. The Prime Minister’s smile encompassed them all.

‘Gentlemen, we have heard it at last: an honest summary of Tory policy.’

The laughter went on, and it grounded Victoria. Here, she could not feel the past. Mama could not shrink her down to childhood while she sat among the ministers and held dear Dash and had Lord M beside her. The first man stood up. She listened, she watched.

They spoke of the support gained by the Irish nationalists. Flimsy jokes were made about Peel and Repeal, and Victoria laughed. Several ministers mentioned the transported Chartists; turned for her reaction. She touched her foot to Melbourne’s.

‘I am glad,’ she said, ‘that it was possible to show mercy in so difficult a case.’

Nods around the table. Murmurs of approbation. The council went on. Everyone wanted to discuss the dispatches from Afghanistan and China. The latest victories were counted and praised. Other colonial news swam along the stream of voices.

From the high windows, twilight floated down into the Great Hall. The footmen lit the lamps. The ministers drank and the Queen drank with them, holding Dash’s water bowl for him to join in. The Chancellor and the Lord Privy Seal fed him biscuits. The Prime Minister spoke on the Marriage Act, and most of the table applauded. Victoria clapped until her hands burned.

The tapestry of words and faces held back the night. The lamps wove the dark with white and gold. Victoria cradled the sleeping Dash. Her foot rested against Melbourne’s. I am happy, she thought. I am safe and I know I shall be even happier than this.

Melbourne did not need to look at her to feel her smile. In his thoughts, beneath the rhetoric and the chinking of glasses - beneath the knowledge that his Cabinet had never held a more successful meeting - he felt the turn of a simple certainty. Victoria, his heart said. I am proud of you.


	9. Mist

‘Your Majesty, are you sure you won’t join us?’

‘Yes, Harriet. Thank you. I hope your journey is very comfortable.’

The Queen walked away. The footman closed the carriage door. The Mistress of the Robes turned to Lady Portman, and their beautiful faces fell into the same grimace.

‘It’s so cold, Emma.’

‘You mustn’t fret, my dear. We wrapped her up well.’

They watched Victoria pass slowly across the court. Both ladies spoke at once.

‘Did she tell you -’

They checked - smiled with a tense note. ‘Go on,’ said the Viscountess.

‘It’s about the Prime Minister.’

‘She told me a few things.’

‘Well, she told me they had...touched.’

The carriage started. The Duchess turned to look back. In the grey morning the Queen’s burgundy riding habit was so very pretty. And she looked so very small, walking between the soaring walls of the castle court. Harriet sniffed.

‘Ah,’ said Emma, ‘come here, dear,’ and they leaned on each other as the carriage rumbled through the gates. The Duchess wiped her eyes. She had received letters that morning from her daughters. Four girls living: three letters full of fanciful handwriting and watercolours; one wobbly self-portrait in chalk. How she missed them when she was from home. She had missed them all the more since her own little Victoria had been laid in the ground. Four months since Victoria, seven years and eight months since Blanche. She worried for her two boys, the younger only just begun at school. She worried for her husband. Sometimes love was all fear.

‘Emma,’ she asked, ‘do you think she meant a kiss?’

The Viscountess drew a long strained breath.

‘I wish to believe so. Yes. I believe she did. I would not expect otherwise of William.’

‘They would all treat her better if she wanted the German.’

‘When he behaved in such a way before their wedding, how might he behave after?’

Emma could not imagine her kind pudgy husband - breeding his beloved cattle, stuffing his pockets with a rainbow of handkerchiefs - being anywhere but at her side when he was needed there. He laughed at all her jokes. He let the children play in his study while he worked, however noisy they grew. When his work was finished he would always join their game and he would always have sweets in his desk.

The ladies gazed out at Windsor. A mist like silver wool was drifting across the Park. Leaves whirled up from the carriage wheels, danced graceful on the breeze.

‘I truly wish her to be happy,’ said Harriet.

‘So do I, my dear. And the man who marries her must wish it more than anyone.’

****

Victoria let an hour pass after her ladies left. She had wanted to stay at Windsor longer. New memories softened the solemn walls. The portraits of Henries and Georges no longer seemed to frown on her. She kept away from the forest, but over the past few mornings her eyes had opened to see flowers. Flowers on her pillow. Without glasshouses to harvest, he had made them out of paper and coloured thread. She wore them all day, on her bodice and in her hair.

He had not slept beside her, because Dash had grown restless. The spaniel was trying to walk - lurching and toppling, grouchy in the pain that followed - and Melbourne kept him calmer than she could. So he had taken Dash to his own rooms, and brought him back each morning, for her to wake beside a drowsy bundle of fur and a bouquet of new clever flowers. He even found some way to give them scent; the faint dampness of real petals. She pestered him to tell her. He put a finger to his lips. She pulled at his sleeve. She ran after him until he turned and lifted her off her feet, and she squealed and lost her thoughts in his laughter.

Skerrett kept her own counsel. When the Prime Minister asked his charming favour, it had given her an excuse to answer Mr Francatelli’s letters. He had sent a treasure box of flavourings, and a heart made of sugar with CEF on one side and MS on the other.

Victoria knew she had to leave. Mountains of dispatch boxes would be waiting at the palace. She had a new curiosity for them. More information on the opium trade in the Far East, on the developments in steam power - then she would better understand what she had learned among the Cabinet. 

Walking downstairs for the last time, Dash in her arms, the castle echoed to their solitude. Her trunks had gone ahead with the carriages. Ernest, having stayed as long as possible to stare at the Duchess of Sutherland, had affectionately bidden his cousin goodbye, and begun the first stage of his journey to Coburg. From her window the Queen had seen Lord M ride out early. She was alone save for the servants and the portraits, and the spaniel.

‘Dear Dash,’ she said. ‘I am so very sorry about your leg.’

He wagged at her voice as eagerly as ever. His conker-brown eyes were cheerful.

‘You’re going to ride back with me to the palace. A long way, Dash, in the fresh air. Shall you like that?’

Wag, wag. She rocked him as she walked to the stables. Her favourite horse stood saddled and bridled. Nodding to the grooms, she stepped up the block and mounted. Dash curled happily over the pommel. She kept one hand on his back. In the other the reins ran loose.

‘Walk on, Diamond.’

The horse’s shoes scrunched along the gravel. Fronds of mist curled around the Queen. They pulled her back. The urge to turn and stay was growing painful. She could stay just for tonight. She could send a message of illness to the palace, and have another deep soft sleep in her bed. In their bed.

She nudged Diamond to a canter. They passed beyond the court. They turned along the side of the chapel. The hoofbeats threw its stone into a thunder of echoes. Deep beneath that stone was a King who had taken six wives, and destroyed four, and shared the grave of one killed by the bearing of his child. There was a Queen who had seen every single child she bore fade and die. Another King, lost in the glittering ruin of his mind; calling out for his family as the doctors strapped him down. And there was the young almost-Queen, who, if she had lived to the throne, would have rendered Victoria needless. Her birth needless, her parents’ marriage. Charlotte should have held the orb and sceptre. Charlotte had married Leopold, long before Belgium chose him for its ruler, and they had lived a brief story of happiness. And near Charlotte lay Kings and Dukes who had spent decades of their lives, fathered countless children, with women who could not now lie beside them.

As in a dark embrace, the chapel held them all. Here were their bones. Here were the griefs they had wept for, and the terrors that had come to their dreams. Here were the shadows of their loves.

Victoria pushed faster. Through the final gates, the drive was swathed with silver. She could not see far enough to go on cantering. At a walk they moved into the sea of mist.

She had ridden to another world. The faintest ghosts of sounds came through. They were hollowed and strange. Alone in the white nothing, her thoughts grew loud.

She had heard so many services preached above the chapel tombs. So many childhood lessons, reciting names and years; learning the glories and the defeats. Their giant legacy had been moulded into her, a second crown beneath her skin.

They had worn the robes of office. They had walked the high paths of duty. Their feet had slipped. Their crowns had slipped. Under the gold and ermine, they could not breathe forever to duty’s rhythm. To take the throne proved an endless sacrifice of self. Commanded by their blood to that sacrifice, their hearts had chafed to bleeding.

Victoria stared through the mist. Clarity seeped from the cold white air. Those men and women beneath the chapel, lying in their eternal stillness, had once felt as she felt now. They had loved - been loved - had felt the same blinding fire. Within herself, between duty and will, between her heart and her crown, that fire had sparked and blazed. It had formed her with a strength great as her reign. A beauty greater. It had burned through her heart into her soul.

The mist was thickening. Diamond trembled slightly. Victoria tightened her hold on the reins.

At first she wondered why Diamond’s steps echoed. They should be in the centre of the drive. The castle was a long way behind and there were no more walls to cast the sound back. She pulled the horse up. Dash pricked his ears and looked around.

Other hoofbeats were coming along the drive. In the mist they seemed to reach her from all sides. Empty, no shadows - only hooves, a walk cautious as her own. She should ride on. She had refused the guard Lady Portman ordered for her. But if she rode on she might collide with whoever was approaching. She lifted in the saddle, listening for the sound’s direction. Dash began to wag.

They appeared suddenly, just ahead. A darkness cutting the white. Then the markings so familiar to her, on the head of the gelding she had known as long as Diamond. The rider wore his hat low over his brow. He looked up before she could speak. Melbourne pulled off his hat. He stopped beside her. Their knees brushed.

They sat silent in the silence of the mist. He had not bowed. There was something in her face that held his eyes to hers.

Deep through her mind, she felt a settling. Something that had struggled and searched and fought was slowing at last; folding away. Something tired was coming into rest. There was no longer any fight. She did not fear. She did not wish. This end had been here always.

He felt his fight end. He had tried. He had hoped for what would break him. If it had destroyed him from the inside out, burned out from his soul and burned his heart away, then he would have borne it, because it was for her. It would have given her an easier future. It would have shielded her. It would have made her safe.

It was over, and it had passed from them without meaning, and left them here together. The mist beaded on their skin.

‘I must collect my books,’ he said.

She turned her horse around. Dash’s tail was a whisking blur. The Prime Minister patted him; rubbed the water from his head.

‘Ma’am, we should take a carriage.’

‘Yes, we should, Lord M. We’ll call mine.’

Melbourne reached out. Victoria took his hand. Before they rode up the drive, they leaned across. He drew his thumb over her cheek. Gently over her lips, and she kissed his palm.


	10. Household

The second day after her return from Windsor, Victoria summoned the Duke of Wellington. He arrived mid-morning out of the rasping wind, cheeks and famous nose chilled red by the step from carriage to door.

‘Ma’am,’ he said. ‘I hope your stay at the castle was pleasant.’

‘It was at times, thank you, your Grace.’

She had wondered which chair to offer. Comfort for a man long out of his youth; no implication of infirmity. Nothing was infirm about him, this figure who had entered the gallery with a stalking swing in his walk, and towered above her as they spoke.

‘Your Grace, I have been sitting by the fire. Would you care to join me?’

The Duke smiled. The girl made a nice little picture in her powder-blue dress. She had some new reason to be friendly. This would put Peel’s nose out of joint. Ah well, couldn’t be helped, and he replied with ‘Would be glad to, Ma’am.’

They sat down in two deep armchairs, upholstery ruddy in the firelight. The Queen’s feet did not quite reach the floor. A footman brought some of the new Indian tea. She poured it herself - unpractised with the weight, tiny china hands holding hard - and the Duke watched a few anxious lines forming on the soft face. He wanted to see the reaction if she dropped it. Giggling, or hamstrung by her embarrassment? She succeeded in pouring his cup; set the pot down and flexed her fingers before she hefted it again to pour her own. Wellington chuckled.

The Queen looked up. He was pleased to hear the crackle of annoyance in her voice.

‘As you observe, sir, I am rather clumsy.’

‘No, no, Ma’am. I was thinking of another matter.’

Victoria hovered at the edge of offence. Only a Tory would be so offhand. But he was here, and she admired him, and his gruffness did not make him cruel. And if it were he who could not lift a teapot, perhaps she would laugh too.

She finished pouring her cup. Wellington sat back; let the fire warm him. The girl had a good enough spirit. He had not been laughing at her. Rather at the thought of a different man in his place. Viscount Melbourne would have stopped her from lifting the heavy pot at all. The Duke wondered how she had learned so much in the past two years, under guidance as soft-handed as the Prime Minister’s. However, he had respect enough for the fellow. Charm and address. Melbourne was the best of the reformers. That wasn’t saying much, of course. He took another draught of tea.

‘Your Grace,’ said Victoria. ‘I have a request to make of you.’

‘Happy to hear it.’

‘It’s about a household appointment.’

He raised his brows. ‘Your Majesty, I am too old to be joining your household.’

‘Why, I didn’t mean - oh, you were joking!’ and her smile was full of dimples. Its transparency made him chuckle again. She was too artless, far too artless, by God, and yet it made her a sight more engaging than the arch self-conscious misses who seemed to infest society these days. His younger boy was always making up to some lisping confection, never an honest word through her lips. If only Charles would fill his time by other means.

‘Well, Ma’am, how can I assist you? Do you want me to recommend a candidate?’

‘Not quite. You see, I have already thought of one. I believe that soon - surely within a year or two - my current Chief Equerry will wish to retire. I should like to ask your second son to replace him.’

A log fell in the grate. She jumped. When she looked back to Wellington, he was looking at her with blunt curiosity.

‘My son, Ma’am? Why mine?’

‘Well, it is as I said when...when I wished you to form a government. I have admired you since I was a child. I should like a member of your family to serve as equerry.’

The Duke sat and looked narrowly at the fourth monarch of his lifetime. She leaned forward. Her toes met the floor.

‘What do you think? Would Lord Charles like the appointment?’

‘I make no doubt he would be delighted, Ma’am. And I confess that I would be glad to see him given such a responsibility.’

‘Good! Oh, good.’ She poured him another careful cup. ‘Your Grace, I must say frankly -’ there’s a novelty, thought Wellington, ‘- quite frankly that I regret my behaviour in May.’

She had known she would surprise him. His hand rattled the saucer as she passed it across. He had the look of a startled hawk. She pressed on.

‘I have not been Queen so very long, sir, and perhaps I...no, surely I ought to have placed impartiality before friendship.’

‘Your Majesty was not permitted many close friends while growing up, I understand.’

Now she would be offended. And he saw it coming - sharp behind her eyes' extraordinary blue - more than offended - he had upset her. He prepared to stand. It would not be the first time he was ordered out of a royal presence.

Victoria took a scratchy breath. Quietly, she told herself. He is a great man and you need his goodwill.

‘Your Grace understands well. So I hope it does not seem strange that I should sometimes hold on too jealously to what friends I have.’

‘Not strange at all, Ma’am. I rely greatly on my friends’ good counsel and good company.’

His surprise was growing. The callow child sounded more like a woman every minute. Where was she finding this calm - this lightened touch? No mystery where she had found the example for it. There was that much good in Melbourne’s guidance. She was balancing it, though, she was blending his gentleness with her own courage and colour. Wellington looked at her and she read the approval in his gaze.

‘I wish,’ she continued, ‘to build my household more equally between the Whigs and the Tories. You know I am most attached to my ladies, but I am sure...’ She hesitated. She had practised it before her mirror. ‘I am sure, Your Grace, that I can do better in the matter of personal appointments, and, indeed, I intend to do better.’

Wellington took her hand. She stared. No-one touched the Queen so freely. He knew it, but he had caught the pattern of rehearsed words, and they had gone to his dry heart. Whether or not Melbourne had scripted that speech, she had chosen to deliver it and she had done well. He pressed the china fingers.

‘I congratulate Your Majesty most truly.’

His sincerity rumbled through her. As he let her hand go, it was natural to press his hand in return. He nodded at her over his tea. She smiled. Even when he was looking straight at her, he looked with a gaze so deep it seemed he still saw the three great armies streaming through the gunsmoke of Waterloo.

****

Wellington had left, pleased and thoughtful. Victoria picked up her skirts and ran around the palace. She felt like a bubble on a breeze. Only Dash running at her heels, and Lord M beside her, would have made this moment better. The two of them were spending the day together. They would arrive in the evening.

Before the Duke’s visit, she had received a message from Brocket Hall: ‘Hair all over the desk. He is worse than a cat.’ She had sent one back -‘Don’t let him have any of your gloves, Lord M. They are his very favourite food’ - and he had sent a brief second message. ‘Too late, Ma’am...’

Now she bounced from door to door. She picked sweets from the bowls in the largest parlour; skidded around the newly polished ballroom. Footmen glanced and grinned. At the foot of the staircase Lehzen caught her and neatened her hair. The Queen hugged her governess.

‘Dear Lehzen. I love you very much.’

Lehzen kissed her forehead, and blinked a sudden dampness from her own eyes, and watched Victoria flutter on up the stairs like the prettiest butterfly in the world. In the corridor, the Duchess stopped to look up.

‘Was that my daughter, Baroness?’

‘It was, yes. She is very happy today.’

Lehzen rarely smiled at Victoria’s mother. She offered half a smile. The Duchess’ nod was unsure.

‘Good,’ she said. She lowered her eyes first. Lehzen found a flicker of sympathy.

‘Will you go and greet her, Your Highness?’

‘No. No, I think not. I would like her day to be all happy.’

****

The Queen would not face the mirror. She had to face the window, and watch for carriage lamps coming up the Mall. A teetering pile of brushes and hairpins lay on the window-seat. She had ducked, leaned up to the panes, shaded her eyes against the light inside the room. Skerrett had barely managed to fix the paper flowers in her hair. The mass of petals almost covered up the brown.

‘Your Majesty looks lovely,’ said Skerrett. Not formal enough, not distant enough, but Victoria had sparkled with excitement as she told her dresser who was coming, and they had giggled all the while. The Queen rummaged through the mess on the seat. She unearthed a dozen ebony pins, their carving delicate as lace.

‘I want you to have these,’ she laughed. As Skerrett began to protest, she pushed them into the hesitating hands. ‘They will look so much nicer in fair hair. Do take them,’ and Skerrett could not deny her warmth, her friendliness, always so striking, and growing yet greater since their final days at Windsor. The Queen was happy. The dresser did not want to see her smile wane. So she took the beautiful pins and slipped all but one gingerly into her pocket, and speared the last through her bun.

‘You see, Skerrett? How well it looks! You’ll need to wear it to the kitchen...’

In the windowpanes, Skerrett’s face turned as pink as Victoria’s. They giggled on, and hunted out a necklace to match the flowers, and the dresser’s wariness had to dwindle. It was so strange, so sweet - after years and years of worry, of dirt and scrabbling and filthy bedsheets, she stood here with the Queen, in the palace, and felt as if she laughed and gossiped with a friend.

At two minutes to seven, Victoria saw bobbing lights in the darkness of the Mall. She pressed her face to the glass. ‘There,’ she said. ‘Where did I leave my shoes, Skerrett?’

At seven o’clock, Melbourne climbed down from his carriage. The wind that through the afternoon had risen to a shriek was now a cold purr. He reached for the snoring dog. Dash had slept all the way from Hertfordshire. The Viscount had finished more work than he expected with the spaniel curled in the crook of his arm, occasionally nosing the pen out of his hand. He hoped the Privy Councillors would not mind a few inky pawprints in their letters.

The Queen heard his voice before she could see him. She wanted to fly. Through two rooms she kept herself to a walk. By the third she was running, wood and carpet sliding under her shoes. It had been twelve hours and twelve hours had been a life, a thousand years, the breadth of all time. She could not breathe until she saw him.

Melbourne had heard the running feet. He started up the stairs. Two in a step. Three, passing the gold balustrades and the upsweep of other flights. The footmen were thinning out. Dash barked and wriggled. The Prime Minister could no longer hear her steps over his own. He reached the head of the final staircase - stopped in the corridor, turning right - and from behind she collided with him, pressed her face to his back, fisted both hands in his coat.

‘Lord M. I’ve missed you. I know it’s only been a day. I’ve missed you so very much.’

They breathed together. He let her steady him.

‘I’ve missed you more, Ma’am.’

‘That’s impossible.’

She felt for Dash and the Viscount guided her hand - held it against the spaniel’s head, and then before the whuffling nose, to be tickled with kisses. Her laughter wound through the Prime Minister's veins.

A servants’ door opened. Someone gulped ‘Oh! Oh, excuse me, Your Majesty, excuse me, my lord,’ and the dresser was blanching and retreating. Victoria held out her hand. Her other arm was still wrapped around Melbourne’s chest.

‘Skerrett, no. Wait.’

He echoed her smile. ‘Her Majesty’s hair looks even lovelier than usual this evening,’ he said. The girl’s white face crimsoned.

‘Sir...er...thank you?’

Skerrett scuffed from foot to foot. Victoria took Dash, rocked him, examined his leg. There was no putrid heat above the splint, no discolouring. She kissed his head; lingered in his dear furry smell. Kissed him once more, and held him out to the dresser.

‘Take him to my rooms. He might let you brush him.’

Holding the spaniel, Skerrett could not help relaxing slightly. She curtsied and backed through the door. Behind it, she rolled her eyes, and sighed, and climbed the candlelit steps with the picture rich across her mind: the Queen clinging to the politician, laughing as they cradled Dash, cradled each other. The dresser peered at the dog, and his wise-foolish face turned serenely up to hers.

Victoria took Melbourne’s hand. She drew him along with her down the corridor. To one side was an alcove. Its statue had been taken for restoration. They slipped into its shadows.

She stretched up. In silence, she drew his head down to hers and kissed his face. His nose, chin. His eyes when he closed them. She laid her cheek to his.

‘Lord M,’ she whispered. ‘Guess what I did today.’

‘You worked out how I made the flowers.’

‘Not quite,’ and she brushed her lips over his temple. ‘Though I soon shall.’

‘We’ll see, Ma’am.’

His hands circled her shoulders. Her hands wove through his hair.

‘Did you,’ his voice came husky with contentment, ‘did you go for a drive?’

‘No. Guess more.’

‘A ride. A walk.’

‘It was storming, Lord M.’

‘A walk around the palace.’

‘I do that every day...’

He smiled against her cheek. In the shadow she touched his lips; mapped their shape along her fingers.

‘I spoke to someone.’

‘A lucky someone.’

Under his chest he felt the heat gathering. She swayed onto her toes. He should not pull her closer. He pulled her closer as she curved her hand around the back of his neck. Now face to face, tasting the same breath.

She struggled to go on. It took a deep pull of air - a shiver below her voice.

‘Do you remember what we talked about, Lord M, in the carriage back from Windsor?’

‘Yes.’

His eyes melted her words away. The shiver crept down. Again she touched his lips, and he parted them to kiss her thumb. Under his hand her back was tensing, bending.

‘Lord M. The Tories. We talked about Wellington.’

‘You saw him?’

‘Yes. Saw him.’

Her skin must be kindling. Gleaming to flame. In his ears his pulse was thunder. Their thoughts were beyond reach. When he leaned down she pressed her open mouth to his. He could find no fear, no caution, nothing but her. He cupped her head in his palm. She tugged at his coat and he staggered. Her back hit the wall. Her hands under his coat, under his shirt. She was flying. He had torn her out from herself and this was all she was. He kissed her throat. He kissed the bare skin at the line of her bodice. She gasped and her gasp shuddered into a cry.

At once they hushed, listened. Their breathing seemed to fill the corridor. Anyone could pass this way. Servants, Lehzen, the Duchess.

They leaned against the wall. They smiled, smiled, still holding, still flooded with the shimmering heat. Their lips met lightly.

‘What,’ he said, touching his nose to hers, ‘what did your visitor have to say?’

‘He said he congratulated me.’

‘For - what? What did you tell him?’

She gave the Prime Minister a laughing glance. And glanced away. He turned her head back to him. ‘Ma’am, what did you tell Wellington?’

‘Something to interest him.’

He was caught between her giggle and his returning thoughts - returning with worry. He saw the magnificence of her glowing face, and saw before it, between them, the consequences if she had already told the Duke...anything. Anything at all. Whatever there was to be told or believed, it should not yet have been in the Tories’ grip.

Victoria felt his worry tightening. Guilty, she reached for his hand. When she had pestered him about the flowers he had laid a finger to his mouth. She lifted his hand and laid his forefinger across her own mouth.

‘Lord M,’ muffled. ‘I asked for his son to be Chief Equerry. Then I told him I regretted our trouble over my ladies.’

Melbourne shook his head. His worry dropped away. Affection welled into its place. No words were tender enough to speak that affection. No words tender enough for her. He linked his arms around her waist.

‘Ma’am, you are too clever for me.’

One more slow kiss. One more winding of her arms round his neck, his lips on her hair. She drew him out of the alcove as into it: their fingers twined, their secret like a jewel in their eyes.

‘Dinner, then, Lord M?’

‘Dinner, Ma’am.’


	11. Together

A parade of politicians called on the Queen. The chief Whigs visited, and the Whigs who called themselves Liberals. She received Irishmen and Scotsmen. When Peel sent a card accepting her invitation, she wavered.

‘Lord M,’ she said, and he rose from the sofa where he had been writing. It was a cold clear day. Sun lay lazy on the parlour floor. Melbourne came to the window; stood beside her, looking out over the gardens.

‘You have done well, Ma’am.’

A slow tide of gratitude rolled through her. She was grateful that he could answer her thoughts. So grateful for his hands on hers, as soon as she reached for him.

‘I wish,’ she murmured, ‘I wish you would stay with me when Peel is here.’

‘I could, Ma’am, but...’

She nodded; tucked her fingers under his. She still wanted.

The Prime Minister wanted to say what he should not. Yes, Ma’am, I shall be there. I shall enjoy whatever you say to Peel. I shall kiss you just before he walks in - kiss you the moment he leaves.

He turned their hands. Palm to palm. His fingers opened hers. He measured them together.

‘Look, Ma’am, how large your hands are.’

She giggled. ‘They are, Lord M. Yours are quite dwarfed.’

He laughed with her. Against his hands, hers were so little, so porcelain white. Surely, he thought, surely among all the philosophers who had condemned monarchy - all the rebels who had turned on Kings and Queens with steel and gunpowder - none could have imagined her contradiction. Small as a child. Candour, impulsive joy, rending tears. Her temper...her fear of rats and of loneliness. And yet, in this form unfitted to its weight, she bore the burden of the crown. She bore it lighter and lighter. He lifted her hands; kissed each in turn.

‘These hands can do anything,’ he said.

‘Anything, Lord M?’

The wistful note made him move nearer. She leaned into him. She kissed his fingers between her own.

‘Lord M, if I could do anything, I would make it so that you could live with me.’

He could not echo her. No matter that it was on his tongue, pressing to be spoken. There was no use in saying it. Worse than no use.

‘Here,’ she went on. ‘We could live together here, and at Brocket Hall, and at the castle. Especially at the castle.’

He ached to answer. Tell her yes, yes, we could. We should. We should come home to each other. We should reach out in the night and find each other there.

She felt the pain behind his silence. With sudden urgency she reached up, linked her arms around his neck, hugged him to her. He hugged her too close for air. She pressed her lips to his jaw.

‘When I am with you,’ she whispered, ‘I am the best of myself.’

His shudder ran through her. She could not hold him tighter. She stroked his hair, his neck - his back, bent so harshly to meet her height.

‘I wish I were taller, Lord M.’

‘Ma’am, you are the loveliest woman who ever lived and nothing about you could be made more beautiful.’

Her heart fell still. Then in a rushing glow it was beating again, beating in her throat and her belly and burning his words into her skin. He cupped her face. In their kiss he told his untold answer. They had to gasp, kiss again, drowningly deep - gasp and smile - her fingers dragging through his hair. He spoke against her lips.

‘I don’t know. I don’t know how we can do it.’

‘I want to know, Lord M.’

‘I want you to be safe. I need you to be safe.’

‘I am only truly safe with you.’

‘While I lead the Whigs, how can we...we cannot. Victoria, we cannot.’

She stared up at him - stared with her body humming, the taste of his mouth in her mouth, two certain truths pulling her between them. We must, she thought. The other truth made her falter. She swallowed down its hurt, and spoke it.

‘You are needed, Lord M. You are needed in the party.’

Once more he cupped her face. Now he looked at her with an expression she half understood. He searched her eyes. She could so easily have said: resign, Lord M. Resign from the premiership and from the Whigs. A year ago, he knew, she would have said both. She might have commanded him.

Today her eyes were a brighter blue, and they were sadder. He touched the tiny line between her brows.

‘Nothing is more precious to me than you are, Ma'am. Nothing.’

‘But Parliament is also precious to you. And it is precious to me too.’

They looked together to the window. Leaves were flickering by. Beyond the gardens, London lay calm in the thin sunlight.

‘I cannot abdicate,’ she said.

‘Don’t speak of abdicating.’

‘I shall speak of whatever I like!’

She huffed out a breath. Halfway, it became a sigh.

‘I cannot abdicate because I must not. I must not because I have no heir yet. No real heir.’

Their eyes held. A long look, opening.

‘It would be one way,’ she said.

‘It could not be the right way. Not for you.’

‘No way will be right for all of us. For me and you and the crown and Parliament.’

She shook her head. He was already shaking his.

‘God help us, Ma’am.’

Tiredness crept into her. It blurred her thoughts. His face stayed clear. His warmth wrapped around her with his arms. He heard her low voice.

‘Lord M. This...this is so...’

She laid her hand against his cheek. He bent his head to hers.

‘This is,’ he answered. ‘This will.’


	12. Family

Peel arrived for his audience awkwardly early. He was suspicious and brusque, spoke at the wrong times, sat in the wrong chair. More than once Victoria had to chew her tongue to keep the laughter down. By the end of their audience, she had to squeeze her nails into her palms to keep from shouting.

‘I’ll be happy to accommodate Your Majesty,’ he said, standing before she stood. ‘Now, if Your Majesty will kindly excuse me, I shall have to leave Your Majesty and return to the House.’

She nodded. She smiled him out of the room. As soon as he was gone she flumped down flat onto a sofa and pressed her hands to her face. ‘I must do this,’ she mumbled into them. ‘I must.’

In her chest, the laughter’s last ghost was fading. Her palms were sore from the dig of her nails. She had said all the words she had planned to say. Soon she would empty an afternoon to visit his home and dine with Lady Peel. He would show her around the ten-year-old headquarters of his police force. She had held out her olive branch. He had taken it. When the Whigs left office he would be her Prime Minister and the Tories would lead her government and that was the truth and there was nothing she could do to change it. She, the Queen. She could not fight as she had before. All she could do now was prove herself fair. She had to prove that, because she would never be impartial again.

A knock at the door. She did not raise her head.

‘Come in. Please. Quickly.’

Melbourne adjusted his hold on Dash, and turned the handle. The room was a pool of evening lamplight. The Queen was lying with her hands over her eyes. He shoved the door shut behind him.

‘I’m here,’ he said. ‘We’re here. Go on, boy,’ and he laid the spaniel in her arms. She gathered Dash to her face. His waggling sweetness was the same comfort as ever. If only all that she loved could come to her as simply and softly as her dear little dog.

She turned her head toward the Prime Minister. Beside Dash’s panting grin, her eyes looked fragile. Melbourne knelt down.

‘How did you fare, Ma’am?’

‘I didn’t lose my temper. I think I did well.’

‘Of course you did well.’

‘Peel seems less angry with me.’

‘No-one could be very angry with you, Ma’am.’

She untangled her hand from Dash’s paws. It soothed her down to her soul, reaching for Melbourne, running her fingertips through the curls above his brow. He kissed her rose-red sleeve.

‘Lord M,’ she murmured. ‘I know I have made a crack in the crown.’

He blinked. ‘In which one, Ma’am? Have you told the jewellers?’

Her dimples appeared. He heard her faint giggle, and caught up - shook his head at himself. But as he felt her meaning he felt its weight, and shifted closer, rested his arms on the sofa by her shoulder.

‘We have cracked the crown, Ma’am. The blame is mine too.’

‘I don’t like you to blame yourself.’

‘You must let me do so sometimes.’

‘Must, indeed?’

A gleam came back to her eyes. He smiled at her. She stuck out her lower lip. He leaned and kissed it. He lingered, touching a strand of her hair which the cushions had tousled. Dash nosed it, curious. Melbourne pulled it loose, and the Queen watched his careful hands, the neat plait he wove.

‘You see, Ma’am, I have not forgotten.’

He tucked the plait over the top of her head. The plainest crown of all. It would do. His heart was only a small kingdom.

She slid her hand into his. The lamps gilded their joined fingers. She wondered how he steadied her so easily. How, in the quiet between words, he heard her need.

‘Lord M, I remember everything you’ve ever taught me.’ Her dimples deepened. ‘I even remember the cross things.’

Chuckling, he touched his lips against her hand. She ran her thumb down the bridge of his nose.

‘Do you think,’ she asked, ‘do you think the crack can be sealed?’

‘Not sealed, Ma’am. I believe it goes too deep. But perhaps...perhaps there are other ways to shore it up.’

Their voices made the silky tail wag. The Prime Minister scratched under Dash’s chin. The dog licked; thumped one of his unsplinted legs. Victoria gazed at them. Melbourne’s arm lay comfortably across her stomach. His face in the lamplight was more beautiful than ever. As she gazed, something unknown brushed into her mind.

Slowly, warmly, the feeling shaped. She wavered on the edge of knowing. Such a strangeness, such a half-believing joy. It formed like a new land; a new star.

The thought grew stronger. The strength of it seemed to well from her heart. Its meaning was there, and she knew it, breathed it - it said - family. This is my family.

Her tears brimmed, and glimmered down her cheeks. She had become unused to crying. Melbourne had become unused to seeing her cry. He smoothed the tears away. They kept spilling, and through them she smiled.

‘Thank you,’ she gulped.

‘For what, Ma’am?’

‘For you, Lord M.’

His concern made her wipe her face. The tears would not dry. She tried again. The Prime Minister picked Dash up; drew the Queen to her feet.

‘Ma’am, let us go out. You need the air.’

She stood on her toes and kissed him. It left his lips damp, tasting of salt, and of whatever thought had made her smile and weep. She balanced on tiptoe - teetered, and he held her up. Her happiness trembled through him. He had never seen a sky bluer than her eyes. They held the sky and the sun. And rain...he dried a drop on her chin. He would not ask her. Behind her radiant face he still saw the effort of her meeting. He would take her out of the palace and hope for thoughts that would only make her smile.

She wrapped her arms around his chest, and around the spaniel. Their embrace - his arms holding her and holding Dash, her arms circling them both - they had forged this. This was the beginning of their home.

****

Through the torchlit dusk they drove out in a landau, its hood down. The grey horses at a swishing trot were silver and smoke. The wind blew low. A bite was in it; the first promise of frost. The moon had risen, waxing full.

The Queen and the Prime Minister sat side by side. Past the carriage, evening walkers bowed and whispered. Victoria waved. On the seat, out of their sight, she held Melbourne’s hand. He nodded to the figures who greeted him. His gloved fingers stroked back and forth across her palm.

The landau rolled through the streets. Victoria began to breathe more deeply. The Tory was a long way away. She had done well. Lord M was proud. She was proud.

The newborn thought was settling. For so long, she had wanted what she was not given. Not by her mother, nor Conroy, Flora Hastings, Leopold, nor even the uncle so fond of her, King William. Within her, somewhere far deep, the lack had left a blankness; a scar of empty cold.

‘Lord M,’ she murmured, and he turned his eyes, the slight quirk of a smile.

‘Ma’am?’

‘When I cried - before we left - it was because I thought of something.’

‘Strange to say, I had guessed as much.’

She pushed his arm. He wanted to lay it round her shoulders; lie back with her into the cushions, let her rest against him.

‘Tell me,’ he said.

Her words came as if they had waited, waited in that cold deep emptiness for as long as it had been there. They filled it with their truth.

‘Lord M, you are my family. You and I and little Dash - we are a family now.’

He stared onward, past the coachman and the horses and the cantering outriders. Pallor came to his face. A pallor near sickness. She drew closer. Without looking, he touched her waist. He gathered a fold of her skirts, and ran it through his hand, down from her waist, her hip, along the line of her leg. It was nothing of what he wanted to say. Nothing at all of what he wanted to do.

More people were passing by the carriage. Melbourne bowed to the strangers in the street. To Victoria, he spoke through a half-smile that held a grin, a messy tearful kiss, his hands on her body, her hands in his hair. He glanced at her once and from his white face his eyes burned her.

‘Ma’am, we are a family. And some day we shall be a family in the eyes of God and England and the world.’

An outrider fell off his horse. As she stared at the Prime Minister, glowed and shivered, the Queen did not notice. But Melbourne frowned; touched her arm again, pointed her round. The rider lay unmoving where he had fallen. Red blossomed from his back. A startled quiet covered the street.

Melbourne stood up. His hand grasped the Queen’s shoulder, kept her down. He looked into the crowd - the noise returning. People were stepping onto the road, milling round in confusion. From their midst, gunshots cracked. One, two, then the carriage horses were shrieking and plunging in the harness. The bullets had flown above them.

The crowd jumbled into shouts, screams. Some began to run. On the pavement was a man holding two revolvers. He was advancing on the landau.

‘Drive on!’ shouted the Viscount, bending down. The coachman’s whip snaked. The horses reared and backed the carriage. The wheels skidded.

Victoria forgot. She lost why the people now fleeing had bowed to her. She saw the guns’ chambers, nine bullets more. She looked up and she saw Melbourne, whiter yet, looking round, searching for their escape or their defence. She forgot whom the bullets must be aimed at. Her heart turned around the hand grasping her shoulder - his fingers even now rubbing over her collarbone, reassuring her, his thoughts for her even as he stared at death. And as the gunman raised the revolvers again, she flung out her arm across Melbourne’s body.

The fourth bullet tore through her sleeve. Straight through the rose-red silk that he had kissed. She felt the brief tug of it. Torchlight shone through the hole. For an instant the report of the gun had left her deaf. The world moved without sound.

Melbourne grasped her waist and pushed her off the bench. She was gripping his coat and he fell with her, onto the carriage floor. Another shot. Another deep deafness, their eyes shocked wide, face to face, staring into each other. He caught her head between his arms and covered it with his head. He covered her body with his body. She clutched him down against her. Against his skin she gasped ‘I love you, I love you, my love, I love you,’ and he spoke at the same time, spoke with a shaking kiss to her lips, the shadow of a smile.

‘I love you, my darling. I love you, Victoria. My wife.’

More shots, more cries. The coachman was swearing. The whip cracked like an echo of the gun. The carriage swerved forward. Something thudded against its wall. Victoria gasped. The Prime Minister closed his eyes. The landau lurched, one side lifting, crunching down. It picked up speed. The hooves thundered. The outriders were galloping. The carriage horses were galloping, the coachman calling them faster and faster. The moon swung across the sky.

The Queen’s heart thrummed against Melbourne’s. She felt across his chest, felt for blood. He shook his head - pulled up her sleeve with the bullet hole. He tore the silk open. He pressed his mouth to her unmarked arm. The carriage thundered on, and he was shuddering, and she bent her arm around his neck and held him to her.

‘My husband,’ she whispered in the dark. ‘My husband.’


	13. Fire

In the entrance hall of the palace, as midnight struck, Wellington scratched his head and frowned. Peel tramped back and forth along the carpet.

‘Can’t understand it,’ he said. ‘The scoundrel disappeared. Where’s he hiding? The sewers? My men should have had him hours ago.’ He turned to the Queen. ‘I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I really am sorry.’

The Queen stood at the foot of the stairs. Behind her was the Prime Minister, pale, his hand on her shoulder. Wellington saw without surprise that she was leaning into Melbourne. She looked exhausted. Her sleeve was torn. If a bullet had passed through that little frame, some politician or prince might already have been on his way to Hannover, carrying the succession to Cumberland. Unpleasant fellow. Somehow the Duke did not think Melbourne would have carried the message of her death. More likely he would have put a gun to his own head.

The soldier approached the Queen. She gave him a small smile. Melbourne did not move his hand. To the Duke, the Whig looked even more exhausted than the girl.

‘Your Majesty,’ Wellington bowed. ‘Is there any way in which I may serve you?’

‘Yes, please. Inform Parliament that I am unharmed. And tell them that the man will shortly be in custody.’

‘Yes,’ Peel supplied, ‘he damn-...he certainly will,’ and he knocked his fist into his palm, counting possibilities - thinking of plots and co-conspirators, puffing angry oaths. The Queen smiled at him. She smiled once more at Wellington. Unconsciously she leaned further into Melbourne. The Viscount glanced at the Duke. Grudging understanding rested in Wellington’s gaze.

‘I’ll do as you say, Ma’am. With your leave, I shall begin now. The House has assembled. They are anxious for news.’

‘Thank you, Your Grace. You have my leave.’

Wellington’s carriage trundled away. Peel jammed on his hat. He doffed it again to the Queen; jerked his head to Melbourne.

‘You’ll hear from me in the morning, Your Majesty.’

‘Thank you, Sir Robert.’

From the door, he turned back. ‘They say the man looked insane,’ he called. ‘People who saw him. Wild eyes, and so on.’

The second carriage departed. The hall was empty. Melbourne and the Queen walked slowly up the staircase. Her feet scuffed. He walked sideways, watching her step.

‘Lord M. I know how to catch the gunman.’

She stumbled. He touched her back.

‘Yes, Ma’am? How would you catch him?’

‘Not would. Shall. I shall drive back - the same way - and draw him out.’

Melbourne stopped. Horror stabbed him to the spot.

‘Please don’t try that, Ma’am.’

Victoria walked on. He reached for her wrist. She halted.

‘I shall do what is right,’ she said.

‘Yes. And that would be wrong.’

‘I think not.’

She turned her hand in his. She ran her forefinger down his wrist, the embroidery of veins.

‘I have had hours to consider, Lord M. I must draw the man out. I shall attempt it tomorrow, and hope that he will be captured straight away. I shall go alone.’

‘You will not!’

‘I shall. You are the leader of my government. If I - if there should be a -’ and she swallowed, gathering herself. ‘If I am lost, one of us must remain.’

‘No. You cannot risk yourself, Ma’am. Please.’

‘How can I not? Peel’s men have failed. They have only this chatter of a lunatic. Whom else might he try to shoot? Whom might he kill? Some innocent. A child.’

Melbourne began to shake his head. Victoria reached up and held it still.

‘I believe this to be my duty as sovereign.’

‘It is not, Ma’am. Your duty is to keep yourself safe.’

‘And my country safe. I cannot be a coward.’

‘I wish you were a coward!’

His cracking voice startled her. Her hands fell to his shoulders. He caught them, closed them between his hands, his prayer twofold. The words he needed fell away. I would give you my life. Victoria, I would give my life and whatever comes after to keep you from this.

‘Ma’am, I beg you.’

He moved to kneel. She tried to pull him up, but he was stronger, dropping to one knee, her hands in his. The pose of a different question. They flushed together. As she stood still, he reached for her hips, pulled her closer. He pressed his face against her stomach. She bent over him, her arms around his tousled head. He felt her ribs lift and tense, push out her aching voice.

‘I do not want to do it, Lord M. I shall because I must.’

He bit his lips to throbbing. She must not see him cry. She needed his strength to be as great as hers. But it was not and his lips were almost bleeding. She kissed his ear. Her breath trembled down his neck.

‘Ma’am,’ he said into her dress. ‘Let me come with you.’

‘No. No, I will not. I wish you to remain here.’

‘Wish or command?’

He looked up. She was wavering. He tightened his grasp on her hips.

‘Do you command me, Ma’am?’

She could not say it. Once she had said it so easily. She had forced him into shapes of her moulding - done to him what she hated to be done to her. In the depth of a frightened night, he was on his knees before her, and she could not command him.

‘Lord M, I wish you to stay here. I wish you to be safe and wait for me to return.’

He heard her wobble and she heard it too. She was going to crumple. She was going to panic and it was coming fast, tearing up through her like ice. Abruptly she kissed his forehead. She pulled his hands from her and before he could touch her again she ran.

****

Melbourne did not try to sleep. He went to the library and worked. The fire threw jagged shadows. His pen scratched. At the end of the page, he did not remember writing half the nonsense he read back. He turned it and wrote on. He could not let himself think. He could not let his thoughts pass between his eyes and the paper.

They passed regardless. Cold steel. Crimson on silk. The rumble of stone closing over the vault. He would follow her. No, he could not - who would look after Dash? The pen toppled from his fingers. A tear spattered the nonsense words. The ink ran like blood.

‘Lord M.’

He looked round. He stood. She stepped through the black of the doorway. The flames glowed in her loose hair; through her nightgown. The clock ticked a lifetime by.

‘Ma’am?’

She closed the door behind her. She turned the key. Beneath her bare feet the floor was warm. The wood slipped under her steps.

They met in the middle of the room, where the fire's gold grew red, and the red faded to a tender darkness. She walked into his arms. She hugged him as he pressed his face against her hair. Listening to his heart, she spoke as low as its beat.

‘I cannot tell you not to be afraid. I am no less afraid.’

A tear ran over her temple. His tear. She let it trickle down her face.

‘Ma’am,’ he said, ‘you are brave enough for both of us.’

‘I am brave because I have you.’

The clock ticked on. The gaps between ticks seemed to widen. The night draped around the library.

She took his hands. She walked backwards. He followed her into the gold. Before the fire the rug lay thick. She sat. He sat.

Through another tick of the clock, they paused. To her, all the cold pure teachings of her life returned, loud and accusing - sin and shame. Here was no sin. She wound her fingers into his.

He hesitated. Tick. Treason, he thought vaguely. Stronger came the worry for her. Discovery and disgrace, insult, mockery. But she knew, she knew it all, and she was lying back and pulling him with her. He overbalanced. Catching himself, his hands pressed hers down on either side. The jump of her chest brushed it to his.

He lowered onto his elbows. He kissed from her hairline to her neck. He kissed between her nightgown’s undone buttons. She squirmed. Her fingers found his hips, drew them downward. Her squirming ceased.

Curiously she reached, and touched. He forced himself into stillness. The world folded down. He heard her throat catch. He heard the pounding of his blood.

‘Ma’am, are you -’

‘I am happy. I am happy, Lord M.’

The fire rippled in her eyes. She reached again, and he moved against her hand. He drew up the hem of her nightgown. She did not freeze. She had no need to. As long as she had known him, she had known this. He was so close that she could only whisper. 

‘Kiss me, please?’

He kissed her until the tension softened from her. He kissed her until her hands flattened over his back, and he placed himself, and he held her as he pushed up. She squeaked - clung to him, nails digging in - but the pain was only in fitting. He moved so gently. He kissed her brows, her flickering eyelids. With each kiss he drew a little deeper. She felt herself opening. The last part of her that had not yet opened to him. Her heart and her mind and now her body. She felt his weight and the slow deep stretch. His body inside hers. Becoming hers. It was something holy. She thought - oh, let me remember. Every instant of this, to the end of days.

He had seen her wince. Now her eyes were wide and bright. Their shock was growing into wonder. She traced his back, the muscles taut with the effort of his slow movement. Peaceful in the dancing light, her hands touched his face. She smiled. The first faint sheen was on her skin.

If tomorrow the worst should happen, this was what she wanted him to have. My husband. My wife. He wanted this etched beneath his memory, however long he lived. And when he was dust on the wind, the wind would sigh her name.

She drew her mouth along his jaw. He lifted her hips and her head rolled back, a shiver sliding through her. The feeling was changing. The warmth had grown raw, restless. It tugged at her. Faintly her body was moving, meeting his. It was music. The rhythm was their music. She shifted against him and he groaned - pushed deeper yet. He could not look away from her eyes.

He slid his hand down between them. Her back arched off the rug. She clutched at him in new shock. ‘No,’ she gulped, ‘it will be too fast,’ and she could not tell what she meant. He kissed her nose, hoarsely chuckling.

‘You are the rarest creature, Ma'am. Rarest, most beautiful.’

Their lips grazed. She slid one leg between his, her foot along his thigh. He looked for pain in her; for fear. Her laughter answered him, shimmering out, and she did not know where it came from, how such a soul-deep comfort could be flaming into wild joy. He tangled his hands through her hair. For a moment he turned them over her face - covered her naked gaze. Her eyes were searing him. His life was in their burning blue.

‘More,’ she said. ‘More.’

He pulled her knees to his sides. She began to cry out. He caught her cry in his open mouth. Their kiss melted, her tongue at his lips with the drag of their bodies. When he moved his hand down her belly again she pressed her hand over his. His breath was rough as a sob. She kissed him as the long shuddering strokes coiled her tight, his fingers tighter, as the heat bloomed too rich to bear, a climbing tide, rushing her up, up. From high as heaven she fell. She fell blazing, flying in endless light. And he pulled from her before he lost himself. She kissed him as he surged and shattered, his face in her neck, and her arms closed around him, her gasping words of love, holding him safe.


	14. Gunman

Melbourne organised the outriders. Twenty, ten in plain clothes. He told the coachman to hide a pistol under the seat. Peel came to the palace, met him in the courtyard, and offered him a dozen policemen. He accepted them. The Tory’s dislike muted under the look in the Prime Minister’s eyes.

‘The Queen won’t come to harm, my lord. We can make sure of that.’

‘Can we, sir?’

The Viscount seemed so brittle that he could crack. The Leader of the Opposition had an impulse to pat his shoulder. He managed a swing of his fist in the air, more like a half-thrown punch, but the older man clasped his hand and shook it.

‘Her Majesty is grateful, Sir Robert. She asked me to communicate her gratitude to you.’ He raised his brows. ‘And I am also grateful.’

There was something in the words Peel had not quite grasped. Whatever it was, it mixed a drop of blunt sympathy into his mind.

‘No need for gratitude,’ he replied, clearing his throat. ‘It is - well, that’s to say - it has been unusually pleasant, my lord, to work with you.’

‘It has indeed been pleasant,’ and Melbourne’s eyes lined at the corners. ‘We need not always be battling.’

After Peel had left, Melbourne walked around the courtyard. The air was thinly clear. The breeze tasted of frost.

They had slept a few hours on the rug before the fire. Victoria had lain with her head on his chest. When she woke, rolled over to look at him, the tangled river of her hair had rustled over his skin. Her smile had warmed him beyond the fire’s warmth.

Up in her bedroom, the Queen stood trying to hold her breath. A knot of nerves had formed in her chest. Everywhere else was soft and lax and lazy. Behind her, struggling with the corset’s laces, Skerrett snuck looks at her face. The dresser had to scuttle as the Queen moved - wandered across to the window.

‘Your Majesty, are...is Your Majesty feeling unwell?’

Victoria was staring through the glass. Her fingertips trailed along her collarbone. Absently she touched her throat.

‘Oh - I’m sorry, Skerrett,’ she said at last. ‘Yes. No, I’m not unwell.’

She went on staring down at the courtyard. The dresser peered over the Queen’s shoulder. Lord Melbourne was walking there. He glanced up toward the window. The Queen laid her hands against the glass.

Skerrett ducked down again. Her grip had gone shaky. She said ‘Which gown would you like, Your Majesty?’ - and what she wanted to say was: you are at the window in your tight corset and your drawers. But it did not matter now. The Queen had slept beside the Prime Minister in no more than a nightgown. And something more had happened since. Skerrett wished she could not tell. She could tell so easily. A wave of fear broke over her. She tied the bow and stepped back; folded her hands.

Victoria turned. Her dresser was pale. The girl’s pretty face held an uncertainty she had not seen there for a long time. Once before she had reached to Skerrett for reassurance. With a little hesitation, she reached out again, squeezed Skerrett’s hand.

‘I should like a brightly coloured gown, please.’

Melbourne saw the Queen from a long way away. Her gown was the purple of amethysts. She ran straight across the courtyard. He noticed figures at nearby windows. He began walking toward her. When he saw her face he had to run.

She had to touch him. She should not. A step away, she grasped his hands, ungloved; laced their bare fingers. They stood close, hiding their hands. He ran his knuckles across her waist. Through the corset she could not feel him enough. The need was pain.

‘Whisper,’ she said. ‘Pretend to whisper.’

He leaned down slowly. Her bonnet’s brim was wide and under it he could turn his lips against her cheek. He kissed beside her ear, kissed the corner of her jaw. She slipped her fingers between the buttons of his coat - felt him smile with her giggle, because her whole hand fitted in - and she found his shirt, flat over his skin. He shivered. His stomach rose to her touch.

‘Good morning, Lord M.’

‘It’s afternoon, Ma’am.’

‘I slept until three.’

She looked at him under her lashes. He had thought nothing between them could be more simple than before. Her hand was cuddled into his coat, her thumb tracing abstract patterns up and down his stomach. It was simpler. The last lingering thing they had not felt together.

She would still drive away. She would still drive out in her amethyst dress to catch the madman with the guns. He gazed down at her face, and its bittersweet dimpling. 

‘Lord M,’ she said. ‘I love you so very much.’

‘That is fortunate, Ma’am. I love you more than I love to be alive.’

Her breath was coming as though from deep water. Her eyes were saying what she did not wish them to. Ask me not to go. Ask me to stay here. She closed her eyes. Her brows dented.

Melbourne drew her hand from his coat. He knelt. The watchers from the windows could not fault this. They would not see that instead of kissing the air above her hand he turned her wrist and kissed the inside of it. He could not give her armour. He could not make her proof against lead. Yet perhaps, if love held any safety, the love would seep into her veins. Perhaps it would run through her blood.

‘Ma’am,’ he said, and stood. She nodded. She opened her eyes. The bravery in them left him dizzy. They still spoke their unwished question, ask me, ask me, and he knew he must not. His selfish asking would not be worth the price of her regret. She would do this impossible thing. They would all see the strength he had always seen.

The landau, its hoods down, rumbled out of the coach-house. He walked her toward it. Her hand through his elbow was shaking. He held it. He lifted her into the carriage.

‘Drina!’

From the far side of the courtyard, the Duchess was billowing toward them.

‘I didn’t hear her,’ Victoria murmured.

‘Nor did I.’

He closed the carriage door. He leaned on it. The Queen laid her arm along the wood, against his shoulder. His mouth prickled with things he could not say. He would never be as brave. At least he could send her off with words of courage.

‘I shall see you when you return, Ma’am.’

‘Yes. You will.’

She knocked on the outside of the landau. It let her touch him one more time. The carriage started - her fingertips dragged over his chest. She turned, looked back at him, and did not have to force her aching smile. He made her smile even now. She pressed her lips to her fingers; blew on them. He mimed a careful catch.

She barely saw her mother behind him. The Duchess arrived at his side just as the landau rolled out of the courtyard. He looked at her only when the Queen had passed beyond his sight.

‘Lord Melbourne. Where is my daughter going?’

He bowed no more than his head. ‘She is going for a drive, Your Highness.’

‘Why, I do not...whyever would she wish to drive out so soon after the attempt on her person?’

‘She considers it right to do so, Your Highness.’

He walked inside. The Duchess stayed, gazing at the empty gateway. She thought suddenly of the Duke’s funeral. The tiny baby girl held up in her nurse’s arms; staring with her huge summer-blue eyes at the coffin draped in red.

‘Drina,’ she said. ‘No,’ and her voice vanished into the sad note of the breeze.

****

The Queen sat in the corner of the carriage. Then on the middle of the bench. She pulled her bonnet over her face - pulled it back and off, let it hang by its ribbons. The gunman must see me, she told herself. And a little cloth will not protect my head.

Outriders trotted on every side. The plain-clothed ones were too obvious. They tried to look unconnected with the carriage, changing their speeds, or keeping to the far side of the road, but they rode too well and their horses were too big and sleek. Their throng was the first thing to attract attention when the landau turned into the Mall.

A cheer rang from the pavement. Victoria jumped. She slipped halfway off the seat. She heard another cheer. People were waving. A man called ‘God save the Queen!’

More men called it in chorus, hats in the air. The cheers grew to dozens, scores of voices. Everyone on the pavement was cheering. Men and women ran along, keeping pace with her. She raised her hand. The cheers swelled huge. An ancient lady fluted ‘God bless Your Majesty,’ and Victoria, meeting her eyes, found such kindness in them that her own eyes stung.

The noise rolled down the Mall. It grew and deepened. Hats flew up. A young couple stepped off the pavement. The girl had a fat pink bouquet in her hand. Grinning, she threw it toward the landau. The Queen leaned out and caught it, brought it to her nose - the flowers smelled of honey. The girl clapped her white gloves. Her husband joined the cheering.

More people were stepping into the road to wave and shout. The coachman drove the horses faster. The outriders closed in. Victoria knelt up on the cushions. So many people blessing her - asking God to save her. She called ‘Thank you,’ and ‘you are most kind,’ and the cheering doubled and redoubled.

The carriage was gaining speed. The plain-clothes riders had given up their secrecy. They rode at all four corners of the landau. She had half forgotten why they were here. The people were applauding her and calling to her. She waved higher. She waved wider. She should do better than waving...if she stood just briefly it could not be too dangerous. Swaying, she got to her feet. The crowd roared. The national anthem had begun. She soared on their voices, on the rising tune. She waved both hands.

The officer in command rode up close. ‘Sit down, please, Your Majesty,’ he mouthed under the clamour. She sighed. Smiling, arms tiring, she began to sit.

Out through a group at the edge of the road there ran a slim figure in dark clothes. He nipped between the cantering horses. His face - it was the same face - Victoria scrambled back. The outriders slashed their whips at him. The carriage swerved. The boy leapt like a scrawny cat. He landed on the side of the landau. His hand came out of his pocket and pointed a revolver at the centre of her forehead.

He had moved so fast that the crowd was still singing when he levelled the gun. The carriage was still thundering along, carrying her, carrying him. A bubble of strange silence formed around them. The Queen stared down the narrow black barrel. She stared into the young black eyes. There was a screaming in them. A screaming so loud she heard it above the crowd. Screams were coming from them now, horrified cries - but the one in him was louder. It was the scream of a million smashed pieces. It was the bloody ripping of a soul.

A moment. The scrap of a second. His forefinger on the trigger. Victoria saw policemen running and the outriders’ arms coming down, guns in their hands, and with a sick lurch of her heart she ducked. The bullets blasted over her. She pressed herself into the cushions and covered her head. The flowers crushed in her hand. She smelled honey and sunlight.

‘Your Majesty! Are you hurt?’

The crowd sounded like mountains falling. The outriders were pulling her up. She shook her head clear. The gunman was gone. There was a broad spray of red on the carriage wall. Red sprinkled her skirt and the cushions.

She could not think. She must only do.

‘Help me,’ she said. ‘Coachman, slower.’

Within the prop of the outriders’ hands, she stood, clambered up onto the bench so that the crowd could see her. New cheering rose and rose, hysterically loud now, filled with sobs. People had fainted. People were leaning on each other, slack with shock. A short way behind, men were gathering around a fallen shape in the street.

‘Back to the palace?’ called the coachman. The Queen nodded. They turned. They started up the Mall, far slower, and she balanced on the bench, waving, nodding. The crowd tumbled into the street. Cheers and cheers and sobs and shouts. They sang again. She tried for a smile. She could not look at the boy on the ground.

The Duchess was waiting at the palace gates. She had been weeping. She rushed to open the carriage door. She snatched at her daughter.

‘Oh, thank God. Oh, God! Drina, it is not your blood?’

Victoria shook her head. The Duchess’ arms crushed round her. She had needed the stifling embrace so many times. It had taken this to earn it. She rested her head on her mother’s shoulder.

‘I am well, Mama. Don’t be afraid.’

The Duchess sobbed. She held the Queen all the way to the entrance hall. Lehzen, white as clay, peeled her off.

‘Let me help you to bed, Your Highness.’

The Duchess leaned heavily on the Baroness. Lehzen could do no more than blow a kiss, the way she had taught Victoria before the princess could toddle. The Queen thought she smiled at her governess. A sinking weariness came with the twitch of her lips.

‘I’m going to my rooms, Lehzen. I shan’t need any help.’

The stairs seemed a climb to the sky. A corridor away, she stopped to lean on the wall. Skerrett found her there.

‘Your Majesty, I’m so glad you’re - I’m very glad.’

The Queen could not smile any more. She let Skerrett help her along the corridor. The door of her rooms was open. The fire was lit.

Skerrett lowered her eyes. She would not watch. But she heard the Queen suddenly running. As the dresser closed the door, she glimpsed them firelit, clinging together. She heard Lord Melbourne whispering, and every second word was love.


	15. Moonlight

The Queen sat cross-legged on her bed. The Prime Minister sat in front of her. He had unlaced her from her spattered gown. Then he had stopped her from throwing it on the fire.

‘Let your dressmakers have it. Perhaps they can copy it.’

‘I never want to wear purple again.’

‘You look like an angel in purple.’

She had taken his hands; held them to her face. Now she sat hunched, her arms resting on his knees. He picked the pins out of her hair. With an admiration ever more familiar, he wondered how such a delicate head bore the weight. He lost count of the plaits and coils he unfastened. Each time he thought he had the last pin, he touched another sharp point of metal or ivory or wood.

‘I think you may have a few stragglers, Ma’am...’

She felt over her head; found so many more that he groaned, and she fixed one into his hair. The pinned curl fell over his brow. It framed his extraordinary eyes.

‘You are too handsome, Lord M.’

Even handsomer when he blushed. A foolish something in her head said Byronic - she shook it away, leaned up to kiss his cheek, atoning for the word. Would that hurt ever pass from him? If only she could drive it out. If only she could kiss away his ghosts.

Outside the window the wind was rising fast. Gusts thudded against the frame. They reminded her of the carriage wheels. The landau had rocked and creaked, speeding her away. The blood had been crimson on the cushions; black on the amethyst silk. She smelled the wet coppery stain she knew was no longer there. She rubbed at the fabric of her underdress - at her bare foot.

‘Ma’am, it was all on the gown.’

In her eyes he caught a smile sweeter than flowers. She palmed his neck and pulled their lips together. She lingered in the smell of his skin and his hair.

‘I don’t feel quite clean,’ she whispered. ‘I feel as though it won’t come off.’

Melbourne glanced at the window. He uncrossed his legs, climbed off the bed. She reached out.

‘Don’t go...’

‘You’re coming with me, Ma’am.’

‘Where? It’s past eleven.’

‘And you slept until three in the afternoon.’

He tugged on the blanket, and she slid with a gasp into his hold. Her underskirt fluttered around their legs. He lifted his overcoat from its hook, tucked her into it, tucked her in against his side. Nothing made her face more starlit, he thought, than curiosity.

She linked her arms around his waist. Their walk was slow, out of the bedroom and along the corridor. Its draughts teased past them. They listened to the long dark mumble of the wind.

Her hair fluttered down his arm. When he pulled his thumb through the ringlets, they furled apart, halving themselves, winding into more soft curls. He drew them out as far as they would go, and watched them bounce back. He fingered the ripples the plaits had left. One plait remained. He unwove it, up from her shoulderblade to her neck. She felt she might begin to float; drift away on the gentle tingle of her skin.

They met no-one on their walk. Melbourne took a quick route toward the rear of the building. The air grew colder. Victoria looked up at him.

‘We can’t go out, Lord M. Don’t you hear the weather?’

‘The weather is why we shall go out.’

He stopped at the final door. She hesitated.

‘Won’t it be dangerous?’

‘What did you do today, Ma’am?’

She was grateful to chuckle. He was grateful to see her push her hair back and peer through the door’s glass.

‘There’s no moon,’ she said.

Across the gardens the silhouettes of trees lashed their branches. The lake was a dull grey smudge along the black.

Victoria turned the handle. The wind cuffed the door open. In a whistling rush the air flooded with scents - leaves and soil, dewed grass. She took a breath. Her first full breath since the gunshots.

‘Come, then,’ she said, and he followed her out into the night.

After a few steps she held on to him. The gusts seemed to blow from everywhere, pushing them forwards, sideways. The Queen breathed deeper. The cold washed her mind clear. She watched the seething sky.

‘Lord M, the wind has blown the moon away.’

‘Indeed, Ma’am.’

‘Perhaps it fell into the lake?’ She felt for his hand. ‘Let’s go and see.’

She pulled him to a run. He kept the pace of her shorter legs. The wind chased them to the lakeside, and she ran straight in, squealing at the cold. The waves soaked up her underskirt, dragged the thin fabric to a clumsy mass. Melbourne walked in to steady her. The water reached his knees. They stood, looking out over the fluttering grey. Above them the clouds knotted. The trees along the banks shook and bowed.

‘I don’t see the moon, Lord M.’

‘Nor do I. No - no, don’t go any deeper,’ and he held her back, and kissed her raised eyebrow. ‘The fish may be hungry,’ he said.

‘They wouldn’t dare to bite me...’

‘Fish don’t understand monarchy, Ma’am. Think of Chartists with scales.’

Her laugh came loose and free. Leaves flew over the water. She could just make out their colours; their twirling shapes. One settled against the Viscount’s shoulder, and balanced there like a butterfly. Victoria smiled. The wind folded the leaf, spun it round. It looked so fragile. Yet it clung to him, through gust after gust.

Here in the night, no-one could see her stand on tiptoe and kiss him, and kiss him, and cradle his face, and kiss him until they hummed with warmth. The lake eddied round their feet. The wind rustled through their clothes.

‘I wish,’ she whispered, ‘I wish that I could speak as you do.’

‘Why, Ma’am? You speak better and better.’

‘But never really well. I can’t choose the right words. I don’t have words good enough for how I feel.’

He smiled against her hair. So comfortably, so unselfconsciously, her hands wandered to his chest, up to his neck, crooked one arm round to pull herself higher. He was only just growing used to how she reached for him. She wanted and she reached, and it was simple. And the caution in his words, his thoughts, did not chill her - did not change her. Perhaps he would always be the darkness to her starlight. Against his shadow she could shine ever brighter.

She leaned back to look at him. The warmth in her eyes was deepening. Her fingers drew through the hair at the nape of his neck.

‘Are you cold, Lord M?’

‘The water is cold, Ma’am. Look how it shivers.’

‘You are shivering too.’

She touched his fingers. Colder than hers. Her eyes rose to his face again. She reached to the fastenings of her underdress. Before he could stop her, she had squeezed the hooks loose. The fabric parted. She took his hands, drew them in between the halves of her bodice, in against the heat of her skin.

He shaped his hands to her, and she swayed into him. She breathed against his throat. His pulse was under her mouth. She kissed it; opened her mouth on it, felt it as her own heart, beating in her lips, her tongue. He felt her heart under his fingertips. In the cold water, he knelt down before her. He kissed the white skin she had bared.

The jolt leapt through her like flame. She lost her balance. His weight was against her. Beneath them the rocks were slippery. They fell with a slide and a floundering splash. In the streaming wind and waves they held on to each other, and heard each other’s ragged laughter, and kissed wet skin and wet hair.

‘Let’s stay here, please, Lord M. Let’s stay here forever.’

He saw nothing beyond her eyes. But he had thought enough to sit, lift her up. He kissed her one more time in the water. She pressed her face to his. She was safe. She was clean.

‘Ma’am, you need a warm bed.’

‘I don’t need anything but you.’

He stood with her legs wound around him. As he carried her back across the gardens, the sky above the lake lightened. The clouds thinned, for a moment, a heartbeat. The Queen and her Prime Minister slipped into the palace under silver moonlight.


	16. Anthem

When Melbourne woke, the night felt like a lingering dream. It was too good for truth. Creeping and giggling through the palace - leaving a thick trail of water, but only one set of footprints. Halfway to her rooms, she had untied his cravat and knotted it round her own neck. Almost there, they blundered into walls because she was brushing kisses all over his face and he could not look where he was walking. Her legs ached with gripping so tightly round him.

‘Lord M,’ and she began to unpeel his shirt from his chest. ‘Lord M, I want to -’

‘I think I can guess, Ma’am.’

He hushed her laugh with his lips. So quickly she had blazed into his heart, and for so long he had feared her fire. He could not make himself fear it any more. He knew it too well. He loved it too much. He kissed her flushed throat.

‘Hurry,’ she mumbled, ‘hurry, please.’

They had barely closed the bedroom door before she shrugged off her wet underdress. He was staring, staring helplessly - his shirt was in her hands, and then hanging before the glowing grate. Her hair dripped and her face was too pale, but she went to the linen cupboard and the towel she pulled out was to drape across his shoulders, scruff through his hair. Her skin slipped against his. He turned the towel around them both.

‘Lord M - Lord M, is it like this for everyone?’

He laughed too loudly for the hour. ‘No, Ma’am,’ he answered, ‘it is not.’

Their hands, shiver-clumsy, found each other. He could stop her - take her to the hearth, make sure the bluish tint left her lips - but he might as well kiss it away. She tugged him toward the bed. He conceded with a smile, with the soft flump of the towel onto the rug. There was no way more easy of warming her.

Now, in the pearled light of early morning, she lay in a small quiet ball against his back. Her arm was over his side, and, even in sleep, her hand gripped his as though it might be taken from her. She breathed with a constant endearing snuffle.

He let himself drift. Half-sleeping, the night turned through him. Is it like this for everyone? she had asked, and later she had breathed her own exhausted answer. No, no. It cannot be. Only we have this. He had held her like his last anchor. Seeing his eyes, she had wound herself around him again. My love, she said, you are perfect, my love. Here, he felt perfect. With all his stained memory, all the shades that haunted him, he was made perfect in her arms.

She was waking. She yawned into his neck. Lazily her arm stretched. Her hand moved to his chest.

‘Good morning,’ she murmured.

He turned over. She kissed his nose. The hollows below his cheekbones were beginning to fill out. What heaven, she thought, what drowsy paradise to draw her hand over his cheek; over the faint rasp of stubble, and down over his smile.

‘I slept like a dormouse, Lord M.’

‘I know, Ma’am. You sounded like a dormouse.’

All her dimples showed. ‘Meep,’ she said into his face, and grinned at his grin, giggled at his fingertips playing up and down her bare side.

‘Lord M.’ She stroked his stomach. ‘Lord M, I didn’t hurt you, did I?’

‘Did you - what, Ma’am?’

‘Your shoulders. With my fingernails.’ Her brow wrinkled. ‘I’m sorry. Did it hurt?’

She wriggled closer, anxious. He laid the back of his hand against her face. The heat of pleasure still radiated from her. Her eyes were luminous with it.

‘Ma’am, you are miraculous. You are everything lovely in creation. And you did not hurt me.’

‘Truly not?’

‘Truly not.’

She sat up to fold her arms on his chest and look down at him. His breath ruffled her hair. Once more she leaned into a kiss, long and warm and kind.

‘We must work,’ she said.

‘Yes, Ma’am, we must.’

Even after two nights as if in marriage, it startled him when she stood up, and shook out her hair and walked to the dressing table, all while wearing nothing but his cravat. When she glanced round he lowered his eyes - and quickly raised them, sheepish. She tried to frown.

‘Lord M. It’s not fair to call my dresser with you here.’

‘Ah - then should I -’

‘No! You will not leave. I mean that Skerrett cannot come and dress me.’

She placed enough weight on the final words for him to hurry out of bed. Knowing her body, it was easy to help her into the first clothes. It was easy for her to sneak kisses as he tied and buttoned; easy too to fold him into his dried shirt. His hair was a wild cloud. She took a comb and he bent down for her to draw it through his curls. She arranged them as though they were flowers. Guiding his hands, she taught him to tuck her hair up into a coil.

His hands only faltered on her corset’s strings. He had never realised how tight it had to be - so tight that she needed to hold on to the bed as he pulled. As the corset slackened a second time, she tilted her head back, and saw the concern in his upside-down face. She touched her lips under his chin.

‘Try again,’ she said. ‘You won’t hurt me.’

He still could not tug the strings so tight that her skin ridged. She left them loose, and went to find a loose dress. As she buttoned it, his voice came from the doorway.

‘Ma’am. Look at these.’

She wandered over, rubbing her eyes.

‘They were just outside,’ he said. She looked over his arm.

Melbourne had not looked at the previous day’s newspapers. Nor had Victoria. Editions from yesterday and today were in his hands. A single story had devoured the front pages. The first of this day’s carried a drawing of rearing horses, a swerving carriage, and the Queen standing, one hand waving, one hand pushing away a scowling gunman. On another the gunman leaned over her, the revolver replaced with a gleaming knife. Another had her bleeding, a gash on her face - on another the outriders, no guns in sight, were grappling with a burly figure, and behind them she waved, smiling, to a shocked throng. Over each picture a giant headline bugled.

COURAGE OF HER MAJESTY

QUEEN APPREHENDS DANGEROUS CRIMINAL

SOVEREIGN RISKS LIFE TO DEFEND POPULACE

OUR QUEEN IN MORTAL DANGER

The previous day’s papers had different drawings. One of the Queen hiding behind the Prime Minister’s shoulder. One of him pulling her down out of sight, as around them three outriders dangled in midair, frozen in the tumble from their horses. One picture - Melbourne glanced at Victoria - one had them clinging to each other, her terrified face white against his dark coat.

QUEEN AND LEADER OF GOVERNMENT ATTACKED

LORD MELBOURNE PROTECTS QUEEN

A PRIME MINISTER’S DEVOTION

The largest illustration of all showed fire bursting from the revolvers’ barrels, and in the carriage the Queen was moving, turning, her wide eyes to the reader, but her body angling away. The Prime Minister was behind her, and she was opening her arms to shield him from the bullets.

‘CROWN DEFENDS DEMOCRACY,’ they read together. Victoria read on, a slight wobble in her words.

‘Great Britain and her dominions wake to an act of supreme heroism. Our young Queen showed herself willing to sacrifice her own life for the elected leader of her government...’

They turned from paper to paper. Some said heroism - his, hers. Some asked why she had risked herself twice. Many more applauded her bravery. Dozens of articles dwelt on the romance of their actions. The Queen saving the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister saving the Queen. Devotion. Respect. Democracy. A beautiful young Britannia. The magnificent leader of the reformers. Devotion. Democracy.

Victoria ran to fetch her bonnet, her shoes. A new energy simmered in her. She returned to the Prime Minister. Standing on her toes was growing practised. He pressed his cheek to hers as she looped her arms around his neck.

Outside the room, at the end of the corridor, Skerrett peered around the corner. Dash had behaved beautifully. He had slept in his basket at the end of her bed, and given her hands a polite lick when she served his morning meal. But now he had seen Melbourne reach out for the papers, and he was squirming and whining, the kick of his injured leg ever stronger. Finally, when she hushed him, he barked like a trumpet. She heard the Queen straight away, over the Viscount’s laugh.

‘Dash! Dash! Where is he?’

The door opened. Victoria came running for her darling. The dresser handed him over and curtsied and smiled, and rushed away before she could see the Prime Minister walk out of the Queen’s bedchamber.

****

In the afternoon, Melbourne and Victoria went out together. They left the carriage behind, and rode. An uncountable mass of people had gathered outside the palace. The Queen rode the length of the Mall, and returned covered in flower petals, ears ringing with cheers. The Prime Minister was escorted all the way to the House. Many ran beside him. Boys who reminded him of Augustus tried to keep pace, and he reined his horse to a shambling trot; lifted his hat to them all. He saw journalists furiously sketching. Peel’s policemen took off their hats. Every shout held thanks. Every child had something to feed the horse. A pale gold sun shone down.

In the evening, the Queen rode out alone, in the landau. It had been cleaned and polished; the same horses were harnessed, nervous and jittering. She wore a bright white dress and gloves. The carriage rolled out of the gates, and the crowd screamed. The palace’s facade echoed with their voices. They sang, they threw so many bouquets that the carriage floor was hidden, and then heaped, blooms in a symphony of colours, scents. The space where she and Melbourne had fallen, where he had covered her with his body - it was flooded in flowers. In the people’s cheering, his name twined with hers. Bless the Queen, they shouted. Bless the Prime Minister. God bless you.

****

The week continued, and the headlines stayed the same. The Queen went to the opera, with Melbourne in the royal box behind her. The audience stood spontaneously, roared the anthem, and stayed standing long enough to delay the overture’s start.

She rode in the streets and the parks; rode with as small an escort as Parliament would allow. More headlines shrieked her courage. From the landau she saw children acting out various versions of the story - hobby-horses for the carriage, tiny Queens and Melbournes, tiny gunmen shouting ‘Bang!’ and brandishing sticks. She winced. She smiled. She told the Prime Minister about the children, and he came with her for the next carriage ride, hand on her back. She rested against him.

Small changes came. When he arrived in the morning with the dispatch boxes, he no longer discussed them from the opposite side of the Queen’s desk. He sat with her on the sofa or the window seat. She sat between his legs, leaning into his chest. Or they sat side by side, her feet hanging just above the floor. After a night when he had worked past dawn, and she saw his heavy eyes, she drew him down flat onto the sofa’s cushions, and cushioned his head in her lap. He dozed off; she read the dispatches to herself. He slept for hours. She sat for hours. In the afternoon, he woke to her butterfly kisses and the tickle of her hair over his face.

Another day they took the boxes to the library. Rain drummed on the windows, and the curtains had been drawn. It felt dark as evening. Half the room was gold. The flames burned high. The thick rug lay before the fireplace. They could not look at each other until the footmen set down the boxes and left. Melbourne locked the door. Then Victoria jumped and he caught her, her lips everywhere, his lips, his neck as she tugged his coat away. She could barely speak through the flush, the pressing need.

‘Are the dispatches very urgent?’

‘They can wait an hour or two.’

‘That isn’t long enough...’

They tangled onto the rug and it was so familiar, so easy. He was grateful for the noise of the rain. Everything she felt she spoke, or gasped into his ear, or cried out. Everything he knew of love was magnified in her. She had cast off all the teachings of fear and frailty and shame. She loved his body and his hands. She loved the fit of their bodies. What she wanted she told him, even when she did not know its name. He learned her skin like a map of the stars.

Finally the heat was settling. At their height she had flung out her arm and knocked an iron into the fire, a rolling thud, sparks spitting. Now the room lay in velvet silence. The fire burned softly.

‘Dispatches,’ he murmured.

‘Let’s look at them here.’

He shook his head. Nonetheless, he fetched the boxes to the rug. Clothes fastened, they lay leaning on their elbows, side by side, feet in the air, leafing through the dispatches. He seldom needed to explain the details of the Afghan campaign. He worked on one document, she on another. Her stockinged foot tapped against his. When her dispatch box was empty, she hooked her foot around his ankle. He dipped his thumb in the ink bottle and smudged it against her cheek. She squealed - caught his hand, smeared his thumb over his own chin. Among the flutter of the papers she fell onto her side, and lost herself in his laughing mouth. When they were breathless, they lay in the firelight, glancing through the final dispatches, the ink on their faces kiss-blurred, her fingers pulling slowly through his hair.

Someone knocked at the door. The knocks were fast and sharp. The person tried the handle.

‘Wait!’ the Queen called. ‘I wish to work in private.’

Lehzen had heard the laughter over the rain. She pressed her fists to her eyes. For a garbled moment she could not think of the English she wanted.

‘Your Majesty, please - please come out.’

The door cracked open. It revealed the Queen’s smudged face. Victoria smiled at her governess - and ceased smiling. Lehzen was worried. Lehzen never panicked, and was panicking.

‘Victoria,’ the Baroness whispered. ‘You must come with me. Melbourne must go. Someone has - someone who will upset you is here.’

‘Then I shall need him to stay with me.’

‘Not for this. I’m sorry, Your...oh, Victoria, I’m sorry, my little girl.’

The Queen squeezed Lehzen’s hand. Above her head another hand appeared, and opened the door wider. The Prime Minister nodded at the Baroness. Lehzen saw him touch Victoria’s hip. The governess knew she should be angry, or shocked, or afraid. She was only glad to see the gentleness with which he held her. Glad that someone would always treat her so tenderly.

‘Lehzen,’ said Victoria. ‘Who is here?’

The Baroness let out one hard angry sigh.

‘Victoria, truly I am sorry. He came with no invitation. No warning. It is King Leopold.’


	17. Leopold

From a high palace window, the King of the Belgians looked out over London. He gazed down the great promenade of the Mall. The clouds rushed by, over the spires of churches and cathedrals, the City gardens, and the great parks sumptuous with their trees’ last red. The Thames was a ribbon of old silk, grey and jade. In the hazy distance, raw green country rolled away.

He might have stood here as Britain’s Consort. He should have stood with Charlotte at his side. Poor Charlotte. Their poor boy. The baby been so handsome, arranged in his cold cradle among the toys he would never play with; tiny clothes he would never wear. Almost twenty-two years past, and Leopold felt it no less. It had seemed violent as a robbery - never to see his son alive. Crueller yet that a stillbirth should have snuffed out his wife. Charlotte with her lovely passionate face. He had calmed her, and perhaps she had enlivened him. Perhaps, with her, he would now be a different man. But here he was, a King in his own right, another child dead, another wife living. The thrones of Britain and Belgium had not combined. The years went on. In dreams, sometimes, Charlotte held his hand.

He had expected a burst of noise to herald his niece’s arrival. When he looked blandly around and saw her standing in the doorway, he could not suppress his jump.

‘My dear Victoria. You have become light-footed. A great improvement.’

Unguarded annoyance filled her eyes. They cast him back across the decades. Still he could hide his wince, and he hid it well. He had gained long practice in doing so. The Queen was shorter than her cousin, darker-haired, her features less sweetly shaped - but her eyes were Charlotte’s blue. They sparked with Charlotte’s anger.

‘Uncle Leopold. I cannot say the same of you. You come at a very inopportune time.’

‘Ah, but why inopportune? I had hoped that you would welcome my support after so frightening an event.’

He could not translate her sudden flash of smile. She knew he could not. For a golden moment she let herself flood with the past hours. Maybe, if she were another woman, such pleasure would have been frightening.

‘Uncle, as the newspapers will tell you, I have maintained my courage.’

‘You have behaved most recklessly.’

His face sharpened. He drew nearer, his curiosity a prodding pressure, making her step back.

‘I may be reckless,’ she replied, ‘but I am not willing to see my subjects endangered.’

‘Indeed. Certain of those subjects, I hear, you shielded even with your own person...’

She stopped with her chin up; arms by her sides. Her nerves were beginning to flicker. She thought of firelight. Fire and sliding hands, smiling into each other’s lips, and the rhythm of the rain an echo to the deep warm rhythm of themselves.

‘I honour my duty as Queen to Britain’s Parliament. I hope to go on fulfilling it.’

Leopold cleared his throat. The girl had not grown. Somehow her words seemed taller. Her gaze held his with a higher assurance.

‘You did quite well, Victoria, in showing courage to your populace.’

‘Thank you. I know that I did.’

She grasped the pause of his surprise. Before he could say more, she was ringing the bell. ‘A pot of tea, please,’ to the footman, and she motioned the King toward the cosiest sofa. She served their tea with one slight spill; she sat in a chair opposite him, and talked. He had never heard her so engaged with politics. And her interest appeared genuine. Though assuredly she was speaking to hold off other subjects. Babbling, indeed - but he felt the push of her determination. He could fit in few words of his own. Behind them, his thoughts whirred around the news that had brought him over the Channel.

Heroine and hero, the papers drummed. Britain’s Prime Minister saving and saved by Britain’s Queen. Self-sacrifice, devotion. The story was dancing along every street of Europe. Countless thousands were charmed. Victoria’s bravery was extolled in castles and Parliaments and markets and slums. Even those who decried the risk could not resist her symbol: the ruler holding out her young life to lure away danger from her subjects; placing herself between a bullet and the leader of her government.

In Leopold’s court, people called it romantic. They were not yet calling it a romance. And if they did - when they did - that rumour would be touched with nobility. His callow niece had been reckless, and foolish, and it had earned her boundless goodwill. Did she understand the danger of such soaring popularity? Could she fathom how hard the fall would be, if atop this bright new pedestal she could not keep her footing?

Nor would she fall alone. He remembered too well what he had witnessed between her and the Whig. By God, she could marry the man...she could override Cabinet and common sense, run to church, run to bed, and half the world would cheer her, because what heart did not thrill to an improbable romance? And only in the cold dull tomorrow of reality would minds follow hearts, and shudder as Britain’s ancient throne crumbled into rubble. Would the Whigs crumble too? Unconstitutional seducers, or raised in prestige by illicit union with the crown? It would be a blank canvas for the Tories to paint their propaganda.

The King wondered, and worried. He chose a biscuit. Victoria watched him nibble its edge, his gaze trained beadily on the ceiling.

‘How are your children, uncle?’

‘They are well at present, I believe.’

Harsh silence fell. It made her a little sorry. This was her mother’s brother; her cousin’s widower. The quiet between them might have been restful. It might have held the ease of companionship. Over the King’s teacup his eyes met hers, swift and stealthy.

‘It is pleasing that your knowledge of political matters has increased, Victoria. However, you must give attention to my concern.’

‘Must I?’

‘I trust I need not spell out my feelings.’

‘Since I am not a child at her lessons, I am very sure you need not do so.’

Once more her determination pushed at him. Something less brittle than stubbornness was building within her character. A layer of greater safety. The stormy temper was the same, but underneath it he did not sense hysteria.

‘Victoria, I am anxious for you.’

After he spoke, he realised he had been sincere - yet his smile was tuned to insincerity. Her face grew paler. Its hurt lay open. A twitch of guilt brought him to his feet. He stepped to the mantelpiece, and examined the clock.

‘Uncle Leopold,’ came her voice, sadder. ‘The mistakes I have made have taught me a great deal.’

‘Yes - well - a monarch’s allowance of mistakes is smaller than those of others.’

Her tea rippled with her sigh. Flora Hastings, she told herself. My Whig ladies. Though it had been good to read the newspapers - more than good to read them while curled up in Melbourne’s lap - their approval could dissolve so very fast. She had daydreamed of their praise and sympathy going on and on. She had dreamed one night of a wedding ring. But even though, for now, in the people’s hearts her courage might outweigh all else, in the minds of Parliament that ring would weigh heavy as the sky.

Leopold eyed her. If the old hysterics were to reappear, it might as well be now.

‘Dear niece,’ he said, ‘you know that I am aware of your partiality for Viscount Melbourne. All young girls must have their little attachments.’

She stood up fast, facing him. She wanted to throw her half-full teacup. The harder she gripped it, the stronger the temptation grew. She rattled it down onto the table, out of reach. When her gaze snapped back to the King's, he saw Charlotte so clearly that he closed his eyes. Perhaps to shut out the image. Perhaps to hold it in.

‘Uncle, you cannot fall asleep yet. I have something to say to you.’

‘Say it, by all means.’

‘I know my duty to this land and to all its dominions and to its allies. I have learned the true and abiding sanctity of Parliament. By the will of God I am Queen. And by the same will I am a woman. My heart remains my own. My body remains my own.’

‘Your body -!’

His eyes opened so wide she could see their shocked red veins. She had spoken of her heart, and words had streamed from it, raw words, too many. She gulped, but she could not unspeak them. Freezing fear clutched through her.

He stared at her, and stared, and stared. In her face the colour drained and clotted. He found himself abruptly close to crying.

‘Are you with child?’

She opened her mouth to deny it. She hesitated, and glanced down. Her stomach did not look any different. How would she know? Her hand moved over her corset, searching for a change. She began to shiver.

‘Victoria, answer me. Are you with child?’

‘I...I do not -’

The door clicked open. Quick footsteps behind her. A solid grip on her arms - a kiss, brief and gentle, to the back of her head.

‘No,’ answered Melbourne. ‘She is not.’

Leopold stepped forward to strangle the Prime Minister, and after two paces collapsed onto the sofa.

‘Oh, Victoria, what have you done?’ he rasped. ‘What have you done?’

‘Blame me,’ Melbourne replied.

‘No, don’t,’ frowned the Queen. ‘Don’t blame Lord M, uncle.’

‘You may be reassured that I blame you both!’

Leopold was sweating. With feverish vagueness he heard them murmur to each other. Are you well?...you’re certain that I am not with...yes, Ma’am, more than certain. The German wiped his brow.

‘I shall cut all trade ties!’ he burst out. ‘Marry him or not - you will say goodbye to our alliance!’

‘You cannot afford that, uncle. Belgium’s economy is not stable enough to weather the loss. And if your relations with the Netherlands sour, how will you manage without Britain’s support?’

The King thought Melbourne was prompting her. Through his tear-misted eyes he watched the Viscount’s face. The man was not speaking. He was looking down at the Queen as she spoke, and slightly smiling. Such intimacy in that smile, such warmth, that Leopold gave up his last hope of some sickening prank. They had told the truth.

He staggered up. ‘I am going to bed,’ he announced. ‘I will see no-one.’

‘Before you retire, uncle, I shall ask a favour of you.’

Her colour was steadying. Melbourne stood at her back and she held his hand cupped between hers like a talisman.

‘Well?’ said Leopold. ‘What favour will you have?’

‘The promise that you will keep your own counsel.’

He sniffed. ‘Do you need to ask, Victoria?’

‘Yes.’

He pulled up short. ‘Oh, indeed? And what if I refuse? Will you cut trade?’

‘No. Our family tie is the only one I would cut.’

She shivered again. Melbourne rubbed her hands between his. Leopold gritted his teeth until they crunched. It was hurting her to make this threat. With a few bitter words he could turn it back against her - twist it in. Looking into that face, those eyes stolen from the past, he could not do it. Theirs was a frozen family. He could not crack it apart.

‘You may place your faith in me.’

He wobbled out of the room. Past the door, he dried his eyes. He knew what dream would visit him tonight. The worst, and best. Across the sunny nursery, Charlotte would run, laughing, to kiss him. In the cradle, the beautiful little boy would chuckle, and hold up his chubby little arms to his father.

For a long time Victoria watched the sofa where Leopold had sat. Melbourne rested his hand on her shoulder. She turned her ear to his chest.

‘Lord M,’ she said, between his heartbeats.

‘Ma’am?’

‘Are you really sure that I'm not -’

‘Yes! Yes, Ma’am, I am sure.’

She spun in his arms. In fierce haste she kissed his lips, jaw, pushed his shirt open to kiss his collarbone. He lifted her off the floor, and she held his face between her palms, thumbs rubbing over his cheeks. Her wistfulness melted into him. Wistfulness and glowing hope.

‘Lord M, you know that I want to, don’t you? Lots. Boys and girls.’

He could fall down here, now, and breathe his last, and his life would end in happiness too great to bear. But if he died now he would have to take his arms from round her. He would rather stay, hold her in the air, and kiss her trembling smile.

‘I know, Ma’am. Lots of them. Girls and boys. And I want them all to look like you.’


	18. Ring

Leopold had brought a large retinue, different sections arriving at different times, and they had clashed with London’s thoroughfares. A fire engine had been delayed on its way to a burning house; several factories had shut down a full afternoon’s production, for lack of coal wagons. One carriage of luggage narrowly missed an elderly lady, and its driver, who spoke no English, was taken up by the police, who spoke nothing else. Heavy wheels left ruts in grass where carriages were not welcome to drive. Court proceedings slowed without traffic-locked defendants, lawyers and judges. The Dean of St Paul’s and Bishop of Westminster made acid references to Belgium in their evening sermons.

Many journalists loitered outside the palace to interview staff. Others tasted the city's mood, and crafted their morning headlines accordingly.

BELGIAN KING INSULTS BRITAIN

FEUD BETWEEN OUR GOVERNMENT AND LOW COUNTRIES

QUEEN INJURED BY CONDUCT OF UNCLE

LORD MELBOURNE AT QUEEN’S SIDE: HER MAJESTY DISTRESSED

Melbourne drove to the palace just after dawn, avoiding a crowd. He brought the papers along with the dispatch boxes. Victoria read through the headlines in bed. Beside her, he lay on his back with Dash on his chest. As he laughed the spaniel bounced slightly - flattened his ears and wagged, tongue lolling into his own grin. The Queen laughed with them.

‘Oh, Dash. Oh, Lord M,’ and she kissed the dog on his whiskers, the Viscount between his brows. ‘Why should we make any news when the papers can make it for us?’

‘An eternal question, Ma’am.’

He scratched Dash’s stomach; scratched around the top of the splint.

‘This leg seems far better.’

‘Yes, thank heaven. Clever darling.’

The spaniel was drifting off. Victoria gathered him up. He gave her cheek a dozy nuzzle. She lowered him over the end of the bed, into the comfort of his basket.

‘We must go back to the same doctor,’ she said, smoothing his ears.

‘I would call that unwise, Ma’am, but...’

‘But I shall still want it.’

‘Yes. And it isn’t the greatest danger.’

‘You’re right, Lord M. Evidently, we are about to go to war with Belgium.’

He chuckled; took her hand, to play with her fingers. He touched a kiss to each knuckle, joint, small pink nail. She leaned against his bent knees. Her arm settled across his thigh.

‘What news is there of the wars?’ she asked. ‘I mean, the ones we already have.’

He talked, toying with her hand, and she listened, leaning on him. The curtains’ slits of light grew golden. Dash snored. Skerrett glanced through the keyhole, and tiptoed on along the corridor.

Victoria could not find any blank paper in the boxes. The documents were all too important to write on. But there were pens, well filled. Melbourne realised what she was doing only when she had covered half her nightgown’s sleeve in haphazard notes.

‘Ma’am, are you mad?’

‘Uncle Cumberland says I am.’

He reached up, and touched her face. She gave him a little smile. Slowly he returned it. Even Cumberland and his schemes were losing their hold over her. She had surprised herself, joking about them.

‘However,’ she added, ‘I see no madness here.’

‘Your sleeve is not paper, Ma’am.’

‘It will do well enough. Or should I write on one of these?’ and she pulled out a sheaf of military lists. ‘This one, how will this one do, Lord M? It’s only a tactical report...’

He took it. She grabbed for it. He tucked it underneath his back and lay on it.

‘Wherever did it go, Ma’am?’

She burrowed for the paper’s edge. He folded his arms. He knew he was too heavy. And he was not ticklish. He let her clamber over him, digging for the report, clumsy with her own giggling. But when her legs tangled between his, her hands sliding over his ribs, he stopped her; drew her down to hug her.

‘If you want to see more work done, Ma’am, you had better not -’

She muffled him with a laughing kiss. Feeling his breath tauten, she lingered, noses just brushing. His hands came to her face. She felt wrapped in him. In his gentleness, kindness, understanding. If she knew every language, every word for love, she would not have words enough for him.

‘We can work later,’ she whispered.

She was still learning his body. But it was his face she watched. She watched it change at her touch. He swallowed, and she kissed the flicker of his throat. He tried to speak. His voice was lost.

The catching of his breath led her hand. She saw his flush deepen, seeping down his neck. He closed his eyes. She brushed her lips over his eyelids; along the lines that creased his brow. What he had known so many times had become new. He was too raw. She was too tender to bear.

She gazed and gazed. He had never been more handsome than now. He shifted - they heard the crackle of the paper. His laugh strained with his body. He felt for her free hand. She kissed his glistening temple.

‘Lord M, I’m here. I am with you.’

His eyes opened like the dawn. She saw the world in them. She pressed her lips to the burn of his skin. He felt her pulse rushing with his heart. He would fall to pieces. As the tension seized tight, he dragged her to him, her mouth to his. His hitching gasp echoed through her blood. He broke in her arms.

A ribbon of sun crept over the bed. They lay peaceful. She traced the trail of light across his features. His fingertips idled up and down her back.

‘Do you have other clothes?’ she murmured.

‘I do.’

‘That’s lucky. These ones are a little...messy.’

He shook with laughter. ‘Indeed,’ he replied. ‘What shall we do about that?’

She saw the intention in his gaze just before he moved. Then she was clutching at his arm, squirming against the deft pressure of his fingers. The heat coiled fast. She held his hand to her, and mumbled into his neck.

‘This will hardly help the mess, Lord M.’

‘True, Ma’am. But since the mess is already made, there seems little harm in making more.’

He shifted down along her body. She twined her fingers through his hair - an anchor to the earth. The sun on their skin was so bright that it seemed to shine out from within.

****

Leopold asked for two audiences. One with Victoria; one with Melbourne. The Queen received the King in a drawing room overlooking the gardens. He met her with a thinned smile and bags below his eyes. Resentfully he saw how she glowed. She was walking on the brink of disaster. She had no right to look so content.

‘Uncle,’ she greeted. ‘Did you not sleep?’

‘No, of course I did not!’

‘I am sorry to hear it. The headlines troubled you?’

‘What head-...oh, that silly nonsense. I did not read them.’

‘Then your rooms were not comfortable?’

‘They were perfectly comfortable, as you know very well. My mind was troubled.’

She went to ring the bell. He stood in the way.

‘I have already breakfasted. All I wish is to speak with you. I did not realise that you had become such a late riser.’

‘Our family has seen worse behaviours.’

‘You mean...fornicating with a politician?’

She bit her tongue. He watched her blanche. He had found his power again. His eyes were feline and his voice clawed into her.

‘You are head of your English Church, and yet you are, shall I say - shall I term it more politely? - you are making love out of wedlock.’

‘With my husband.’

‘Oh, Victoria, stop your foolish dreaming! You are not Melbourne’s wife. You are his mistress. You have no hope of marriage.’

‘I have hope of everything I want!’

Briefly her voice stopped his. He wavered in the rush of memory. Her anger was boiling up. But the old wild rage that used to remind him so sharply, so sweetly - it was honing, its petulance stripping away. What had been her Achilles heel was growing into a sword.

A kind of grief pierced him. Another little remembrance was fading. Victoria could not have stayed the same forever. Yet in some small dim part of himself he was happy, too happy, that her eyes would always be the blue of remembered love.

‘My dear. Please. I am far older than you. If you let me, I can guide you.’

‘You guided me to Albert, and he left us in the woods.’

‘I will not be held responsible for the faults of a tedious boy!’

As her mouth fell open he cast his eyes up, hands up. ‘Very well!’ he snapped. ‘You hear it from my own mouth, niece. Incidentally,’ he felt in his coat, ‘I have a letter from him.’

‘A letter for whom?’

Her stomach was clenching. He glanced at her, sardonic. She felt for a calm thought. No. They cannot twist me. They cannot force me anywhere. Especially not now. She thought of the morning in her bed. She held on to the picture. The light in his eyes, his body arching into hers. She took the letter from the King, and as she opened the paper, as the knot in her stomach squeezed painfully, she thought of Melbourne’s hand on her stomach, over the same skin - the warm slip of his palm along it, turning all her flesh to silk and flame.

‘Cousin Victoria,’ Albert wrote. ‘I was very sorry to hear of the attempt made against you. It is fortunate that you were not harmed. It seems moreover very dangerous for you to have drawn the gunman out. Please allow me to send you my hopes of safety and good advice.

‘There is one more thing I should like to say. It is this. When I visited you a month ago, I believe that I caused you offence. I apologise. I also apologise to your dog.

‘Maybe we shall meet again under more favourable circumstances. Until then, I remain, etc...

‘Your cousin, Albert.’

Ernest’s voice came with the lines as though Victoria could see him, leaning over Albert’s desk, coaxing pleasantness into the letter. She folded it up. It left her feeling...nothing. Or at least very little. Albert was handsome. Albert was clever, and loved his lost mother. He played the piano beautifully. And he had been impatient, ungentle, unfair. With Dash and with Lord M, he had been cruel. He was not yet a man. She had given him the flowers, and they were enough.

‘I shall write him an answer later, uncle,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

Leopold had watched her read. He had scant hope left of her heart changing. With the indifference in her eyes, the hope’s last ashes blew away.

‘Very well,’ he snapped. ‘Keep your so-called husband, Victoria. But heed my warning. There is no way to prevent a crisis. You will harm the Constitution as much as the crown.’

‘Uncle, I mean to be equable. I am to have Tory equerries. I have spoken to Peel and Wellington. I mean to ask them to appoint Tory ladies for me, even while the Whigs are still in government.’

‘Oh, Victoria. It is a brave attempt you are making.’

Leopold struggled - it shamed him suddenly, how much he had to struggle - to keep his voice clean of mockery. She looked at him, doubtful, and he found himself touching her hands. He did not recall the last time he had touched her other than by rote, or to intimidate. She could only just let his fingers meet hers. They quickly slipped apart.

‘Whatever you may try,’ he said, throat lumpy, ‘whatever you may try to do will be insufficient. You could make yourself the most popular monarch who ever lived, and yet all who comprehend the value of impartiality between crown and government would revile this marriage. Victoria, you may be forced off the throne.’

‘They cannot force me off if the Whigs block them.’

‘That will make it -’

‘Worse, uncle, yes. But I do not have an heir. If I could only be saved by Whig support, I would have to let it damn me too.’

‘Once damned, how would you possibly recover?’

‘I don’t know!’ Her voice rose. ‘How should I know?’

‘And what if the Whigs did not support you? What if, Victoria, they knew what damage that might do to their own interests?’

She turned away. His dismissal was in the hunch of her shoulders. He did not try to touch her again. He bowed his head.

‘I cannot encourage you in this.’ He had to halt; clear his throat. ‘I must not support you. But I hope - I ask - that you realise you have my sympathy.’

She half-turned. She nodded. And he, eyes prickling, regret aching, left the room.

He retired to the gallery. A footman went to fetch the Prime Minister. Leopold had seen Melbourne’s arrival that morning, watched from his own sleepless window as the Viscount stepped down from the carriage. And when Melbourne walked into the gallery, and Leopold saw different clothes and rumpled hair and the same glow as on Victoria’s face, he walked across and pulled his gloves from his pocket and slapped them across the older man's cheek. The politician looked straight into the King’s furious eyes.

‘No,’ Melbourne said. ‘I will not.’

‘And a King cannot! And we are past the fashion of duelling! But for all you will not give me satisfaction, I take great satisfaction from striking you. I only restrain myself from using my fists in order to save the Queen’s feelings.’

‘Did you, indeed, Your Majesty? You are well accustomed to guarding her feelings.’

Leopold shoved him. Melbourne braced himself - did not shove back.

‘Viscount, you are a scoundrel. You have placed my niece in the greatest danger.’

‘I know it.’

‘Curse you!’

‘Curse me all you like. I shall be by her side if the worst happens.’

‘And so shall I!’

‘No. You will not.’

Leopold moved a fraction backwards. Melbourne stared him further back.

‘I admit,’ the King began, ‘I admit I have not been...’ and he could not finish. He could only dig for some insult. ‘Well,’ he shot, ‘well, my lord, how would you manage to be by her side? Resign from your beloved party?’

The Queen walked through the door. The Prime Minister saw her, but the word was already leaving his lips.

‘Yes,’ he said.

It was a bullet to her thoughts, a deafening pain - because the pain was his. She felt it without touching him, without even nearing him. They had talked, weeks ago, in the sunny parlour. She had told him: you are needed in the party. Parliament is precious to you. She had learned more and more how precious. How truly much it needed him. Of the men who might succeed him as leader, none was ready. If they lost him now, Britain would surely lose the Whigs.

‘No,’ she answered across the gallery. Her uncle turned, and she held her head up, her head that was growing too heavy. ‘No. If I were removed as Queen, Lord Melbourne would not have to resign.’

The Viscount felt a bittersweet admiration. He heard the King sigh.

‘My niece, you must not trust in such an idea. Losing the throne would not uncrown you in your kingdom’s memory. To marry a former monarch would end any politician’s career.’

‘Why should it? That is stupid. That is cruel.’

‘It is unavoidable...’

Her hands were curling to fists. She knew her face was turning red. Her voice muted.

‘I do not accept it. It should not be so.’

Melbourne swallowed before he spoke.

‘I would still resign, Ma’am.’

I know, she told him, soundless, I know, and what would it do to you? What misery would you suffer, being out of Parliament? Aloud, she said ‘No. No. I would not let you, Lord M.’

Leopold huffed, and smoothed his gloves. He could not banish the pang in his chest. Melbourne stepped toward her.

‘Ma’am, you must trust me to decide.’

‘No! I trust you for everything else. Everything else. I will not trust you for that. I will not let you break your heart.’

She clutched up her skirts and ran. The Prime Minister glanced at the King. Leopold frowned, motioned him after her. Slightly and shallowly, Melbourne bowed. He looked a last moment at the German, and Leopold flinched from the pity in his gaze. And Melbourne turned away, and ran after the Queen.

He found her in the library. She was standing by the fire with her arms wrapped around herself. Her head was bent. Her hurt was a bruising worse than any Leopold could inflict.

He approached. He breathed in. Then she looked round, and he faltered. She had tried not to cry - tried so hard that her cheeks were crimson. She stumbled into his chest; tucked her arms under his coat and round him, rubbed her face into his shirt.

‘I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Lord M.’

‘What should you possibly be sorry for?’

‘For what I shall do to you. Whatever happens, it will hurt you. I shall hurt you.’

She let out one heaving, shivering sob. He could only hold her, and kiss her hair, and when she raised her head he wiped her eyes, touched the lovely colour in her cheeks.

‘Ma’am,’ he said, 'I cannot tell you that it will not be painful.’

She sniffed. He kissed the side of her nose; her mouth as it began to wobble.

‘But I can tell you something else.’

He drew her down with him onto the rug. The firelight washed over them. Her smile shook with remembering. He stroked the wisps of hair from her eyes, and leaned down, to bring their faces level.

‘I can tell you this, Ma’am. I have devoted most of my life to Parliament. And that is a long time.’

She faintly snorted. He rested his forehead against hers.

‘If it becomes necessary - unavoidable - to resign, I shall do it. I shall grieve for my role in the Whigs. I shall worry for Parliament.’

‘The Whigs may fall, Lord M.’

His nod moved her head. He blinked hard. Their lashes brushed together.

‘We may fall,’ he answered. ‘But every party must fall from power at some time.’

‘Not because of this.’

‘No...not because of this. But for some other reason.’

‘I am truly sorry.’

‘I am not, Ma'am.’

She reached for his hands. He took her hands and gripped them.

‘Victoria,’ he whispered, ‘whatever comes - whatever we must lose - it will not change this.’

He pulled off his signet ring. She gasped - stared as he slid it onto her finger, the circle too large, the tarnished silver warm from his skin. He kissed the ring on her hand.

She dropped her head against his shoulder. He felt a single tear run down his cheek. He gathered her to him, rocking her. She felt the hum of every word he spoke.

‘You are my home. You are the end of all my paths, and ways, and time. I am yours.’


	19. Secret

‘Let me congratulate you, Prime Minister.’

On a long Parliament staircase, Melbourne turned, and saw the Duke of Wellington stalking up behind him.

‘Thank you, Your Grace. How have I earned your congratulations?’

‘By your party’s spectacular rise in popularity. And - if you’ll allow me - by your courage.’

‘I assume you mean such presence of mind as I showed during the attack.’

‘That, certainly. But your courage has been manifold.’

They walked together toward the House. Approaching its entrance, Wellington asked quietly ‘Will you believe me a friendly voice?’

‘It depends what you have to say.’

‘I say that it’s a perilous road you and Her Majesty are walking.’ 

They stopped. They looked away from each other.

‘Your Grace,’ Melbourne murmured, ‘I hoped many other things for the Queen.’

‘As did I. Not least a quieter beginning for her reign.’ The Duke looked at the doors of the House. ‘But this will be much worse than the previous troubles.’

‘That is a gross understatement.’

‘It is indeed. History books, Melbourne. You may figure as the Minister who brought down the monarchy.’

Melbourne had thought it many times - at his desk, among the shouting crowds of Parliament, alone in his carriage - in the Queen’s bed with her asleep in his arms, snuffling, her head tucked under his chin. To hear it from the conqueror of Napoleon was only a little more painful.

The Lord Chancellor ambled by, with a smile for them both. Melbourne smiled back. Wellington jerked a tired nod. He let the other Whig pass out of earshot.

‘You are a good man, Viscount,’ he said. ‘And that is not flippantly meant.’

‘I am honoured to hear it from a truly great man.’

The Duke felt himself sigh. A thin old sigh that came to him too often, as though his lungs were beginning to let in a draught.

‘Time comes for us all,’ he replied. ‘My long day is closing.’

‘A day full of service to Britain, and to the world.’

Silent, an unexpected sympathy flickered between them. The night of the first shooting, Wellington had seen the sovereign and the Prime Minister in the palace; seen her leaning into him, him holding on to her. The Duke had not been startled. Perhaps a little envious. They would never lose sight of each other. Long ago, slowly and sadly, he and Kitty had lost sight, and patience, and all understanding. But the Viscount and the Queen - even in the depth of their fear, with her dress ripped and his face ice-white, strength had gathered in their closeness. They had fitted together.

‘I am not a sentimental fool, Melbourne,’ and he cleared his throat. ‘I shall act for the good of Parliament and of this country. But I shall not seek to do you harm.’

Melbourne felt as though time were suspending around them. Or he was suspended in his shock. Other Whigs walked by. He returned their smiles and greetings. He greeted the Tories who tipped their hats to him. The Duke sighed again.

‘The girl has lost enough,’ he muttered.

‘Too much.’ Anger glittered through Melbourne’s voice. He looked up at Wellington, met the gaze of a preying hawk; held it. ‘She has lost far too much.’

Peel passed by. He hesitated - sidestepped back - shook the hand the Prime Minister offered. Then he hurried on. The Viscount glanced up at Wellington.

‘We must begin, Your Grace.’

‘Indeed.’

They moved toward the doorway. Reaching it, the soldier’s heavy hand rested a moment on the Prime Minister’s shoulder.

‘I cannot claim to approve. None but a fool could do so. But what is inevitable is inevitable.’

Melbourne swallowed. He could choose any glib words of gratitude.

‘Walk in with me, sir,’ he said.

A sharp cold corner of the Duke’s mind smoothed into warmth. He nodded. They entered the House side by side.

****

Melbourne drove straight from Parliament to Windsor. He arrived after sundown. The wind had a bite like snow. It blew the Queen across the courtyard to meet him.

‘Oh, Lord M, come inside and get warm!’

There were grooms around them, but she could take his arm, and as she pushed her hand into his greatcoat’s pocket he slid his hand in over hers, clasped her chilled fingers. She spoke with her cheek brushing his shoulder.

‘Six days...’

The words blended into the shush of the wind. He looked behind, and when the servants and the carriage lamps grew distant he leaned down to kiss her head. Her fingers clutched his. Briefly he kissed her hair again, settling into her smell, her cold-reddened smile. She felt as though she had not breathed since she last saw him.

‘Too long,’ and she pushed closer into his side. ‘Six days is much too long.’

‘I expected two days. We were debating Afghanistan.’

‘I know. I have been reading all about it. You had to be there, Lord M. And,’ her fingertips curled into his palm, ‘and Parliament might have asked questions if you were not.’

He gazed into her face, her enchanting summer-sky eyes. He thought he had missed her so badly it ached, but now with her here, touching him, her eyes shining into his heart, he knew the six days had been an agony. There was only so much longer he could bear this. Only so much longer he could wake at night and light a candle to read through her letters, so that he could fall asleep again. And to know that she was missing him had been most painful of all.

‘Soon enough, Ma’am, we shall have no more separations.’

They stumbled, looking at each other and not their footing. In the black shadow of the chapel’s wall he caught her up against him. She kissed him as if his absence had been centuries. Even when all her body was crushed to his, she wanted to be closer.

‘I wish,’ she rushed between kisses, ‘I so wish I could always be with you...’

‘You are always with me.’

Her hand settled in his hair, and he felt the metal of the signet ring.

‘The news seems good from overseas,’ she said. ‘The people are even happier.’

‘They feel that you are bringing Britain luck, Ma’am. So, for that matter, does much of Parliament.’

‘If only they would stay happy...’

She rubbed her cheek to his; her lips across his rough jaw. He tucked his face into the curve of her neck. Yes, he thought into her skin, if only they could all stay so happy that anything might be forgiven.

‘Come, Ma’am. You are cold.’

Hurrying into the palace, they caught smiles from the footmen and the maids. The Queen had returned, and her hand was tucked through the arm of a man who made her walk a dance. It mattered little to the household who that man was; what party he served. As they orbited the Queen, the ripples of her mood reached them all. They knew her temper, knew her generosity better, her kindness best of all. To see her happy made the endless echoing corridors feel like a home. What a beautiful glow she wore. What a beautiful couple they made.

****

The bedroom fire had been lit early. Warmth enveloped them as they stepped over the threshold. Victoria went to the hearth, and the basket where the spaniel was sleeping upside down.

‘Dash,’ she whispered. She tickled his stomach. ‘Dash, look who’s come to see you...’

The dog peered sleepily over the basket’s edge. In a moment he was awake, panting, tail whisking to a blur. Before the Queen could lift him, he had scrambled up and out. He slithered on the rug, struggled to balance on his splint, and Melbourne came to meet him - knelt down, and the spaniel, wagging wildly, hobbled three crooked steps into his arms.

‘Mmph,’ said the Prime Minister, as his face was licked from chin to hairline. Victoria snatched her sketchbook from the mantelpiece.

‘Lord M, this is the longest he’s ever stayed in one place...’

‘Draw quickly, Ma’am. I may dissolve.’

Giggling so much that her hand quivered, she caught their outline. She hurried in patches of shade - clothes and fur. She lingered on Melbourne’s smile, Dash’s ears. The Viscount held the dog in place. When the Queen held out the sketch, he looked with one eye, the other closed against the onslaught of kisses.

‘That is truly lovely, Ma’am.’

‘I shall colour it too. Would you like to have it?’

‘Above all things,’ and he drew her down, stroked her cheek as they smiled at the picture. The dog kissed them both.

‘Dear Dash,’ she smiled. ‘Your leg will feel much lighter soon.’

His conker-brown eyes gleamed up at them. In their arms he was as heavy and warm as a baby.

****

At eleven o’clock the carriage rolled down a dark familiar road. The Queen peered out, her hand gripping Melbourne’s. He felt the tremor in her fingers. Gently he drew them downward; curved them over Dash’s sleeping head.

‘Ma’am, his leg has healed. We saw him walk.’

‘I know. I do know. But...but what if he could only walk because of the splint? What if the doctor has to cut off his leg?’

‘He will not have to. Even if he did, Dash would be no less precious with three.’

Victoria turned. The Prime Minister’s eyes held hers; held her, all of her, as if in his arms. His smile came so clear across the dim light. Through her worry came a low warm ache of love. She lifted his hand and kissed his palm. Then she laid his hand over Dash’s head. Safety was in his touch.

The carriage slowed. Lamplit gates passed the windows, and the courtyard was grey and calm. Before the door, the doctor stood within a misty cloud of pipe smoke. He watched as the horses fell to a walk. The crest glistened on the panels.

He had little interest in politics. He had less interest in royalty; acknowledged the beauty of castles and palaces, and dismissed the concept of one anointed bloodline raised above all others. Animals were his work. He made room in his mind for the people whose animals were dear to them. It had been easy to remember the spaniel’s owner. She had held the little dog while his leg was set. She had been afraid. Her husband had tended to her scratches and her fear.

‘Glad to see you both,’ he said. ‘Bring the little fellow in.’

They followed him down the passageway, and this time Dash stood up on the operating table, propped determinedly on all four paws. The doctor nodded.

‘Very good. The leg looks well.’

Victoria reached to hug her dog. The old man said ‘Hold him still,’ and as she obeyed a knife was already cutting down along the splint. Dash yapped and struggled. Melbourne stepped to the Queen’s side. Her face was whitening.

The surgeon pulled the broken splint away. Dash flashed his teeth; took a drunken step, and fell over. Victoria gasped.

‘Oh, no! No...’

The Viscount slipped his arm around her waist. She drew Dash upright. The doctor felt up and down the leg. It was thinner, its feathers flattened.

‘Nothing seems amiss,’ and he tapped the grumbling nose. ‘Yes, I’ve heard your objections, young man. Now, let’s see you walk.’

Dash took a second step. He staggered. When he fell again he whined. Victoria reached to help him, but his paws were windmilling and with a scrabble he stood. The Prime Minister looked to the Queen and saw her eyes burning, tears swallowed back, all her strength willed into the wobbling paws. She did not blink. She would cry if she blinked. She leaned on the sureness of Melbourne’s arm.

Another step, and Dash’s leg bent under his weight. He swayed - lifted the weak paw off the table, pulled himself forward on three. Slow and lopsided, he turned to Victoria. She stroked him, and dragged a smile to her face.

‘Go on, dearest Dash,’ she gulped. ‘Please. Please walk for me.’

Her gloved fingers slid on his coat - she pulled the gloves off. As she held him firmer, drew him into another step, the doctor glanced at her bare hands. She did not notice. Melbourne was steadying her and she was steadying Dash. The spaniel touched all four paws to the table. He managed a lurch forward, and did not whine. He sniffed round at the damaged leg. With its paw pressed stiffly to the wood, he stepped again. The plumed tail waved. A final stiff step. He picked up one glove in his teeth, and settled down to chew it.

‘Please,’ said Victoria, ‘tell us entirely honestly. Is he healed?’

‘Appears so, yes. That clumsiness is to be expected. But keep an eye on him, and if he keeps favouring the leg, bring him back.’

She let her eyes close - leaned more heavily against Melbourne. The Viscount reached to smooth Dash’s ears, and her hand followed his. The doctor watched their affection enwrap the dog. He watched them hold on to each other.

From the carriage’s crest, he had known that the husband was a peer. He had guessed from the wife’s clothes and manner that she had some royal connection. And as the newspapers blazed with the story of guns and sacrifice and glorious honour, he had raised his eyebrows at portraits of the Queen and the Prime Minister. Then he had smiled.

The girl’s care for her spaniel had impressed him. Her courage, great enough to stay and assist while he operated - and to stay again today - it was unique in his memory. And the man had helped her with an understanding beyond need of words. It occurred to the doctor that he had not remembered two separate people.

Here before him, he saw strength too deep to measure. This was a completion. They were forged into one.

He had assumed they had married in secret. But the only ring she wore was an old signet, on the wrong finger. That was quite some risk they were taking, the intimacy in their touch and in their eyes. The doctor saw no point in softening his words. He patted Dash, dropped the splint into the fire - straightened up, and spoke flat and gruff across the quiet.

‘I know who you are. Do you want me to get you a licence?’

They froze into statues. For five ticks of the mantel clock, the only other noise was the ripping of the glove between Dash’s teeth. The politician moved first. He stepped as if to place himself in front of the Queen. The doctor shook his head.

‘That is to say, I know and do not care who you are. Makes no odds to me. If you need someone to get you a licence without being found out, I’ll do it. You’ve already overpaid me fourfold.’

The Queen touched the Prime Minister’s back. The doctor saw her mouthing ‘A marriage licence?’ and the nobleman nodding. She glanced between them.

‘I am not twenty-one yet,’ she said. Melbourne shook his head.

‘Ma’am, that is the least of it. If anyone found out you had married in secret - without even mentioning it to your Privy Council -’

She turned her head the other way, so that only he could see her face. He bent down to catch her whisper, the words no louder than her breath.

‘This would not be the Council’s, Lord M. This would be ours.’

He reached for her hand. When the doctor looked at the ceiling with a small chuckle, Melbourne ducked his head and kissed her, grounding himself in the press of their lips, their fingers. She stared up at him. Her face was turning pink. The sudden hot hope in her gaze could rush him along with it - rush them both to something foolish and dangerous and yearningly wonderful.

‘It would be illegal, Ma’am. Very, very illegal.’

‘What we have been doing is already treason.’

‘My treason, not yours.’

‘I don't recall complaining, Lord M.’

Now he felt himself flush. She kissed the colour growing in his cheeks. Without letting him go, she turned to the doctor.

‘How would you manage it?’ she asked.

‘I’ve tended to the Dean’s stable for many years.’

‘The Dean of Windsor? But he knows -’

‘Yes, yes, I’m sure he knows you very well. But I’ve saved a very great many of his expensive horses. If I told him both parties were of age, or near enough, he’d kindly forget that he needed any particular names for the licence, and he’d find a pretty little church in this diocese whose priest doesn’t hear much of the outside world, and you could marry there as soon as you liked, and hope that no-one more knowledgeable pokes through the register. And then if you have an accident you won’t be in as much trouble.’

Victoria muffled her yelp of embarrassment in Melbourne’s coat. Melbourne could not help laughing. The old man wrinkled into a broader smile. Young people, he thought. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you’re close to twenty-one, aren’t you, madam?’

‘Twenty and a half,’ she squeaked.

‘Ah, who’s going to gripe about that? In any event, you’ll have a public ceremony later, won’t you? Banns called, and all that. Once the country sees you in a grand gown and flowers and such, what will an earlier wedding matter?’

She raised her head. ‘So,’ she nodded, fingers rubbing over Melbourne’s palms, ‘so it will only really matter if we have an...um. If we suddenly need to have been married. Otherwise, we must only keep it a secret. That doesn’t seem very difficult.’

The Viscount was being rushed along. He was looking at the sunrise light of her face and his common sense was spinning away from him. He cupped her chin. He ignored the spark in her eyes that said she saw his mind, saw the same dizzy eagerness flooding through him as through her. It was hard to keep his voice low - stop it from jumping with treacherous hope.

‘Underage,’ he listed. ‘No consent from your mother. The risk that someone will stumble over the record before we officially marry.’

She listened. She tried to catch herself on his reasoning, his caution. Yet they already faced scandal. At the very worst, she faced abdication, he disgrace. An almost-legal marriage did not compare. And her uncle had married a Papist. One of her great-uncles had married a commoner, another an illegitimate widow. An illegitimate son had been born to her aunt, rumour told; countless Fitz-names called her other uncles Father.

‘Lord M, I think we can do it. I think we should.’

He could not hold back his smile. ‘What if -’ he began, and honesty made him laugh again. ‘No. The Dean is too clever to get into trouble.’

‘Exactly. He would never remember approving such a licence.’

‘Correct,’ said the doctor. He peered at his watch. ‘Now, are you decided? I’ve a foaling to see about. What should we say? Come back next Sunday, and I’ll have the licence, and the names of a church and a blind old vicar who never sets foot outside his village. How will that do?’

‘It will be perfect,’ said Victoria. She gripped Melbourne’s coat harder. ‘Please?’ she asked. ‘Lord M, please? It doesn’t seem so very...it truly seems hardly bad at all. Not compared to all the other things that may come.’

He touched the signet ring, so large for her hand. They were passing the last possible boundary. A blank licence; an underage bride. But soon enough there would be a marriage with no secrets. The storm would break over them - and in their hearts would linger what only they knew. The second wedding would belong to everyone. The first would be theirs.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It will be perfect.’


	20. Dance

Skerrett was running. She had run in the past for the worst reasons, the saddest; daylit nightmares of flight where her fear was always faster. Today, as she ran, she was laughing. It startled her to laugh so hard. It felt too loud, like ice shattering. But all the footmen were smiling, and she had not yet fallen down, and ahead of her the Queen was running too, laughing too.

‘Your Majesty, please! Your feet will be so cold!’

‘They won’t, they won’t, Skerrett...’

The snow had just begun. Dark was drawing in, the wind crooning a soft song in the chimneys, and all at once a million white stars were blowing past the bedroom windows. Victoria, completely dressed except for her feet, had snatched Dash from the bed and darted out down the corridor. And Skerrett was chasing her with three pairs of boots, and they were laughing and Dash was yapping, and from far across the palace their voices carried to the Duchess and the Baroness. The Queen’s mother and the Queen’s governess went to their separate windows, and watched as a courtyard door swung open and their daughter ran out barefoot, her gown as white as the whirling snow, a wreath of white gardenias in her hair.

Dash snapped at the flakes. As she set him down he jumped up for them. Skerrett grinned at his bouncing; stood back while he ran around Victoria’s skirts. A new red ribbon waved around his neck. His limp was fading away. Feathers were growing back over the scalpel scar. He stood up on his hind legs like a little soldier, and the Queen crouched down to clasp his forepaws and walk him backward and forward.

‘What a fine dancer you are, Dash! Why, you are almost better than Lord M...’

Skerrett rubbed at her lip to hide her smile. The Prime Minister had stayed the week at Windsor. On a laughing whim Victoria had announced a banquet and a ball - to celebrate the end of November, she told the household - and after weeks of idleness they had liked the challenge. The evening had been a glittering triumph. Lamps burned at every window and music swept on the wind. Whigs and Tories thronged the castle. Victoria invited her uncle, and he brought his children. From the Netherlands the three princes came, hovering round their teenage sister. They were courteous to Leopold; the two eldest carried Leopold’s sons on their shoulders and fed them sweets.

Ernest arrived just in time to dance and charm. Albert had declined the invitation. But he sent some music along with his brother - a book of Schumann’s Lieder - and when, under the chandeliers of the ballroom, Ernest set the book gently in Victoria’s hands, she hesitated.

‘It is lovely. Thank you.’

The prince fingered his moustache. When he had advised Albert to send a gift, he had meant something pretty and impersonal. He loved his brother - how he loved him! More than his own life, no happy memory without them together - and yet sometimes the boy made him wonder how much blood they really shared. Albert had forfeited the right to send their cousin such gifts as this. He had been cruel.

For the briefest moment, in her splendid eyes, Ernest saw refusal. She stifled it. She made herself leaf through the music. Over the notes she heard Albert’s contemptuous voice. Her temper sparked hot. There were bookmarks, one white ribbon and one red. She did not touch them. They looked like blood on a furry leg, and a sad little snapped bone.

The flush of anger crept up to her face. Ernest watched with wincing sympathy as she fought her lips into a smile, and said, ‘Thank you, cousin. I have great respect for the work of Herr Schumann.’

‘I’m happy to hear it. I am also very fond of his compositions.’

He stressed his I, and her smile grew less stiff. She still held the music as if it might bite her. Not for the first time, he cursed his brother. This girl would have been a joyous wife.

Her eyes flickered past him. Suddenly she relaxed, face and body. Ernest blinked. In his high-collared uniform he could not look round without turning his back to her. Half the room was watching the Queen, but her eyes and her true smile had fixed on someone behind him.

‘Lord M! I hope you remember my cousin?’

‘Of course, Ma’am.’

The Viscount bowed. Quickly Ernest held out his hand. His mind was jumping about. The way her anger had simply left her, like a stain rinsed off - it had been on seeing this man. This man who had been on the far side of the ballroom, and had sensed the Queen’s need of him. This man who, before his bow and his light friendly handshake, had been looking at Victoria as a husband at his wife.

‘Melbourne,’ said the German. ‘I am extremely glad to see you.’

‘Your Highness. It is a great pleasure to see you here again.’

Ernest’s heart was jumping with his thoughts. He found himself grinning. His cousin had drawn toward the politician and her skirts were brushing against his leg. Her little porcelain hand patted his sleeve. The gentlest request for attention the prince had ever seen from her. The Whig bent down.

‘Ma’am?’

‘Dash would like to see Ernest, Lord M...’

‘Then I shall fetch him. Would you like him in any particular finery?’

She laughed. She wanted to touch Melbourne’s cheek, hold his hand. He was so inconceivably handsome in the Windsor uniform. Before the guests began arriving, they had met in the ballroom, and he had seen her gown - her floating golden gown with its sash of black velvet - and known she had designed it for them to match. He had picked her up under the chandeliers and swung her around and around.

Amidst the throng of guests, he bowed to her, and again to Ernest. The German was all dimples and twinkling smile.

‘Lord Melbourne, shall we have a game of cards when you return?’

‘Gladly, Your Highness. So long as you can prevent Dash from eating the pack.’

Melbourne left through the warm ripple of Victoria’s laughter. He stood a little while in the doorway. Her gown blazed beneath the thousand candles. Her eyes had followed him. She put her fingers to her lips. To the other guests, she would be stifling a yawn. But he could raise his hand, as if stretching his arm; he could catch the kiss she sent, and carry it with him.

When the Queen turned back to Ernest, he looked like a little boy. Excitement was making him twitch. ‘Hush,’ she mouthed, and tucked her hand under his elbow. The orchestra had begun another dance. She led him onto the floor.

‘Cousin,’ he murmured. ‘You look like a fairytale. And I think you are as happy as a princess in a fairytale.’

‘A Queen, cousin. I am a most happy Queen. But it is truer than fairytales.’

They giggled at each other. Ernest was so good to laugh with. It did not frighten her that he had realised so fast. He is loving, she thought; he knows love.

‘Dear Ernest, you won’t -’

‘No. I shall not tell him.’

‘At least...not until it is to be announced.’

‘I shall wait for your permission.’

She nodded. The first shadow passed over her face. He would not let it deepen. Quickly he squeezed her hand. ‘Dear Vicky,’ he said. ‘I would have liked you to be my sister-in-law. But I hope we are always to be friends.’

‘Always, always. I promise.’

‘And I shall teach many unsuitable words to your many beautiful children.’

‘You will not!’

Other dancers turned at her squeal. Princes smiled, nobles smiled, politicians of all hues. Once the Queen had walked through ballrooms with high chin and wounded eyes. Tonight she outglowed the candles.

Before long, the dance ending, others joined in with her giggles. Melbourne had brought Dash to the ballroom. The spaniel had three long ostrich feathers through his collar, and they shimmered as he wagged. Ernest cradled him; rubbed his chin against the soft ears.

‘Take care,’ said Victoria, ‘you mustn’t teach him naughty words...’

‘Not a single one. Upon my honour.’

Victoria was gladder than ever that Dash was so sweet. He had drawn every eye in the ballroom, and people were rushing to stroke him, and she had a breath of time when no-one would see her. She backed through the nearest door. Melbourne walked quietly out of another.

They met in the dark of the corridor. She stretched up; fastened her arms around his neck. He kissed across her face from ear to ear.

‘Lord M, I wanted to wear the ring on my hand...’

‘I’m relieved that you did not. Anyone might have noticed the monogram.’

‘That was what I thought. So I wore it somewhere else.’

‘Where, Ma’am?’

She kissed his growing smile. ‘You’ll have to find it,’ she whispered.

One more kiss, one more press of her cheek to his, and they returned to the ball through their separate doors. Victoria danced with every man who asked her. She talked to the wives of Tories, and found them amusing. Some, she imagined, could become her friends. Walking and waltzing, her feet began to ache. She could not let the pain make her cross. She danced on.

Once or twice, she felt the old crowded solitude form its bubble round her. She was still observed by everyone. She was still dwarfed by almost everyone. It was easy to be afraid. It was easy to feel the lonely cold. But tonight she did not want to ward it off with glass after glass from the footmen’s trays. She had only to look up across the ballroom and see Lord M. How did he know when she needed his gaze? How was it that when she looked up his eyes were already on hers, warm with understanding?

Melbourne and Ernest played cards. Dash sat on the Prime Minister’s lap, and chewed through two diamonds and three spades. After an hour of play, Ernest certain that half his victories had been the older man’s intention, the prince searched out the Ace of hearts and slid it across the table. Then he clapped Melbourne’s shoulder, shook Dash’s paw, and ambled away to find a stronger drink.

The Viscount slipped the card into his pocket. It rustled there for the next few hours, through more card games and more dances, and walking the spaniel around the courtyard, a walk genially joined by Wellington and his sons. A turgid conversation with King Leopold, polite for appearances, was made pleasant by Lord Palmerston: the other Whig waltzed up to tell such a ribald joke that Leopold was shocked into sniggering. The King’s children and the young Dutch princess played with Dash until their bedtimes. Lady Peel had confessed herself a little afraid of dogs, and Melbourne watched Victoria leave the dancefloor to sit beside the Tories’ foremost woman and coax her into holding the spaniel. Dash offered his stomach and licked Lady Peel’s face. Sir Robert produced a sketchbook and drew the little group. Victoria asked, without slyness, to look through the book. Her admiration of the drawings made Peel blush. The Prime Minister gazed, and thought his heart would spill over, until Emma passed and poked him in the back with a muttered ‘Obvious, William...’

The last waltz he danced with the Queen. She had manoeuvred to his side, and he almost shook his head: it would be too particular, she should not favour him so clearly. Then he saw her eyes. They were weary under her happiness. He had watched every guest marvel at how she had grown. Such a small stature had become so high. Her own success was beginning to frighten her.

He was weary too. She felt it in his hands as he drew her into the dance, and through the first slow steps.

‘Ma’am, you are luminous.’

‘I am only happy, Lord M. I could not be happy if you were not with me.’

He held the answer back. A wiser man would say - I shall not always be with you. Wishing cannot make it so. But he was not wise enough. He was just wise enough to bend and breathe in the smell of her hair, and whisper close to her skin.

‘You have done beautifully. You have delighted everyone, all by yourself.’

She was so grateful to be waltzing. No-one would blame her for moving closer, her thumb tucking into his palm. His hand at her back was a warm safety. She could fix her eyes on his face and look, and look, and he could cradle her in his smile.

The orchestra played on. At the centre of the ballroom, the Queen and her Prime Minister danced, and the couples who orbited round them could not look away from the two figures, tall and tiny, spinning through the music.

****

After the ball was over, and the clocks were striking four, and the candles were guttering, Melbourne carried Dash along the empty corridors. Victoria clung to his free arm and told him of the politicians with whom she had talked, and their kind wives.

‘...and Lady Peel is afraid of dogs, Lord M! Can you imagine being afraid of dogs?’

‘Easily, Ma’am. Look at this fearsome creature.’

Dash gave a squeaky yawn. Victoria echoed it even as she laughed.

‘You must be very tired, Ma’am.’

‘My feet are. Are you?’

‘Only my head. Your cousin is a fine card player.’

‘And you, Lord M, are the finest I’ve ever played against.’ At last she could slide her hand through his, lace their fingers tight. ‘So,’ and she stopped him to kiss him, ‘so your head must be tired from thinking how to let him win.’

‘I may be guilty...’

He had loosened his cravat. She traced the skin between its folds. In the hushed light, soft shadow in her hair and her dimples, she looked so young that his heart flickered with guilt.

She saw it dull his eyes. It no longer angered her. It had been her enemy - his fear, his doubt - a wall she could not climb. Now it only drew her closer. She stroked his hand.

‘It will be Sunday soon, Lord M.’

‘Yes, it will.’

He held her hand to his lips. Her courage made his heart heavier. On their new path there would be no turning back. Suddenly she pressed her fingers across his mouth, stopped the words she saw coming - then her sigh was half at herself, and she slackened her hold, moved it to his shoulder. He kissed her forehead.

‘I shall always be yours, Ma’am. That does not mean I shall find your pain easy to bear. Your embarrassment.’

‘Of course not. I shall hate your pain. I shall hate the names they call you. But I would hate it most of all if I could not be with you.’

He drew the comb out of her hair. Curls fluttered loose. She shook them down.

‘For the wedding,’ she said, ‘perhaps I shall wear only my hair.’

As he stuttered, and grew pink, she ran her palm over his cheek; let the warmth seep into her. He kissed the fragile skin between her thumb and fingers.

‘Far be it from me to question your judgment, Ma’am. But,’ he touched her hair, ‘apart from this lovely colour, what other might you wear?’

‘I told you, Lord M. The colour of my skin.’

Their laughter spilled over. Dash’s tail thumped at the sound. They walked on, arms linked around him.

‘White,’ said Victoria.

‘A white gown? That will be beautiful.’

‘Perhaps it would be too strange...’

‘Do exactly what pleases you, Ma’am. And if flowers from Brocket will please you, you shall have those too.’

They wandered through the castle. By the end of the walk, long and peaceful, Dash had snuffled into sleep. Victoria carried him to the bed; settled him between the pillows. As Melbourne unstrung her gown, she turned, and pointed to her chest. He laid his palm to it. Over her skin, stitched inside the fabric, was a chain fine as thread. The ring hung over her heartbeat.


	21. Snow

Amid the dancing flakes, Victoria gathered Dash up, and buried her nose in his fur.

‘Skerrett,’ she mumbled. ‘I am going to ask you a great favour.’

‘Anything, Ma’am.’

Skerrett knelt down; laced the Queen into her favourite boots. Victoria hesitated.

‘It is not...quite...it is something illegal. But nothing cruel. It is only to sign your name.’

Skerrett blinked. She had guessed what was planned. She had not dreamed of this question.

‘Your Majesty, I don’t mind if it’s legal or not. I’ll do whatever you need me to.’

‘Oh, Skerrett, thank you,’ and Victoria smiled, and Dash smiled as he panted, and for an instant she and her spaniel looked exactly alike. Then wheels rumbled toward the courtyard. Lord Melbourne’s carriage rolled into the archway. It stopped there, gleaming dark against the snow. Beyond the arch, another carriage stood: small and smart, two horses, the kind a tailor or a doctor might drive.

‘Should I get ready, Your Majesty?’

Victoria nodded. Her heart was thrumming like wings. As the dresser hurried back into the castle, the snow thickened. The Queen walked against its rush. It tingled across her face, a thousand tiny caresses; a blessing. In the archway, the crested carriage was backing. It rolled out of sight of the higher windows. She pulled up her hem and ran.

She ran under the arch. The horses shied at the billow of her skirt. Dash barked. The carriage door swung open. Melbourne reached out. Her white glove closed around his black one. He lifted her up the steps and into the warm darkness, and they fell onto the cushions.

‘Today, Lord M. Today. Now. Is it real?’

‘I don’t know, Ma’am. I think I am dreaming. I think I have dreamed you up.’

His thoughts were lost in her smile. He was lost in her. She tucked her hands inside his coat. Dash cuddled between their bodies.

‘The doctor,’ she asked, ‘he’ll be a witness?’

‘He will. And your dresser?’

‘Yes. I trust her. I wish Lehzen could know, but she would have tried to stop it. And I thought of Emma, or Harriet, but if...if anyone does find out, the witnesses shouldn’t be Whigs, should they?’

‘No. So it could not have been Emily. Nor one of our brothers.’

‘I’m sorry they could not come. But they will all be at the second wedding.’

‘They will. Although they may be inclined to throw harder things than rice.’

She wrapped her arms around him. Beyond the glass, the doctor’s brougham turned - Skerrett at its window - and trundled off down the long drive. The Prime Minister’s coachman left a minute’s interval. Then he backed out of the archway. The trees and the grass and the town were a shimmering blur. The gusts whirled round the carriage, rocking it on its springs. The snow painted the window with silver lace.

They sat quiet. Victoria leaned on Melbourne’s chest. He held her tightly, hand over her collarbone. The signet ring heated between their skin.

The outskirts of Windsor rolled dreamily by. Walls became hedges. He took out the marriage licence. She touched her lips to his jaw. Cheeks together, they watched the brougham turn off the road. The larger carriage followed.

Through the white wind, a tiny church appeared. Candlelight glowed through its stained glass; cast shadows of rich colour on the snow outside. Melbourne closed his eyes against Victoria’s hair.

‘Wait,’ he whispered.

She felt the tremor in him. The carriage halted. She stood, and pulled down the blinds over its windows. In darkness, she climbed into his lap, knees along his hips, the snowdrift of her skirt spreading around them. She held his face in her hands.

‘As long as you like,’ she answered.

She rested her brow against his. He did not open his eyes. He felt for her waist; pulled her closer, safer. The past was reaching for him, heavy with ghosts.

‘I love you, Lord M.’

Her voice ran like a sword through his memory. It held him with her. She held him in this moment. Cold fear was at the edge of his thoughts. In their centre was her warm weight, the peace of her arms. As he found a smile - as her lips feathered over his cheek - he remembered the night of the ball. Waltzing, she had told him her happiness. She had told him she could not be happy without him. Perhaps she would never know how deep her words had echoed. Without her, he could not be at all.

He opened his eyes. He touched her hands. For the last time, he ran his thumb along her bare ring finger.

‘I shall love you until the end of my days, Ma’am. And that will not be long enough to tell you how much I love you.’

Her eyes were glistening. He rubbed two slow tears from her cheeks. She smiled into his palm. How many of her tears he had dried. How long a river had carried them at last to this shore.

‘Sir,’ she said, ‘shall we go and be married?’

‘It is a fine day for a wedding, Ma’am.’

They climbed out of the carriage. Dash jumped after them, landing with a flurry of flakes, barking at the wind. Melbourne squeezed a handful of snow and threw it. The spaniel jumped and bit it out of the air. At the church’s porch, the doctor chuckled, and Skerrett smiled behind her hand. She peered through the doors.

Candles were lit along the nave. More glimmered in the simple chandeliers. The altar was decked in purple. Warmth glowed in wood and stone.

The doctor beckoned her inside. When Victoria reached the porch, it was empty. She looked around at the snow. The fields were cloaked in alabaster. The wind stroked through the trees. When she next saw the white fields, the branches rippling - when she walked back over the rainbow shadows of the glass - she would be married.

Melbourne stopped on the path. He had to wait one moment more. He had to take this one last look at her. One last look at what they had been.

‘Ma’am,’ he said.

She heard his voice, barely louder than the wind. She turned to him. He saw her face flushed with cold. Her smile, shining.

‘Lord M.’

He walked up to the porch. Dash bounced along beside him, and when they reached the Queen she was laughing, the Prime Minister laughing, the dog yipping. They picked him up.

‘He might carry the ring for us,’ she suggested.

‘Ma’am, he would...’

‘...eat it,’ and they kissed either side of his cold nose. Over his head, their lips brushed. She reached up to the flowers in her hair.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured. Melbourne kissed her brow. Snow had dusted the petals, softening their edges. They looked like a floating crown of mist.

Dash jumped to the floor. The light through the doors was tempting. Victoria grabbed for him, but he was already wiggling through the gap. Tail whisking, he disappeared inside. She shook her head.

‘The vicar will wonder at such a small bridegroom.’

The Viscount chuckled. As she dimpled up at him, he touched her hand again. Carefully he pulled away her glove. He bent, and kissed the subtle blue veins, the long pianist’s fingers, the brave lines of her bones. She pressed her face into his neck. His heat washed through her blood.

Briefly he kissed her palm. Its lines were more familiar than his own. She had woven herself into him. How had he held together before? Before she flamed into his life, her storm and starlight, how had he lived? Before his heart caught the rhythm of her voice, how had its beat not fallen still? She had touched him and she had burned the cold away.

The candlelight glimmered in her eyes. She turned her hand to his face; his cheek, the curve of his mouth. She kissed the path her fingertips had traced. In this little holy place, hidden by the snow, the words he spoke would mould into her. They would carve the story of her soul.

He drew the glove back onto her hand. She took his arm. They slipped through the doors.

The vicar was waiting before the altar. He looked up at the sound of their footsteps.

‘Children. The Dean tells me you have brought a licence.’

Melbourne laid it in his hands. The priest lifted it to his nose. Alexandrina Kent. William Lamb. He made out their vague shapes: a dark man; a girl holding on to his arm. Victoria saw him squint. She walked closer. Her nerves fluttered high. She reached back. The Viscount took her hand and squeezed it.

The vicar leaned down. Finding her gaze, he nodded. A pleasure to see eyes so blue. These days, it took a bright colour to pierce through the cloud.

‘Bless you, my dear.’

The vicar gazed a little longer at those extraordinary eyes. Very young. Yet a shade in their depths, darker than blue, seemed older.

‘Your witnesses are ready,’ he said. ‘And, I believe, your other little guest has found a cushion for himself. Are you content to begin?’

‘Yes, Father.’

The witnesses flickered in, each to one side. Slowly the priest picked up the marriage service. He could no longer read it. Even before his sight had begun to fog, the words had lived in his mind. They had lived there sixty years. It was merely a rightness, the shape of the book in his hands.

He read, and his tone shaped to the empty church. A shame, he thought, that this couple had no other guests, beyond their witnesses and whatever little animal was in the pews. By their voices, their ages were not equal. Unequal enough to trouble their families. He and his wife had been the same. Perhaps from the snowy sky she was watching this ceremony.

The old service ran slowly by. It spoke itself; it passed ahead of his mind. A moment of quiet told him he had reached the declarations. There was no-one to claim an impediment. Only the wind, and the flakes whispering against the glass.

He recited on. The first question, and then he stopped for the response. And the man said, softly, ‘I will.’

The priest cleared his throat. Something in the bridegroom’s voice caught at him. In the silence of the church, in this service of new beginning, there was an ending.

He recited on, asked the bride. She did not leave space between question and answer. The ring of his words was still on the air when she said ‘I will,’ and the same feeling came to him with her reply. A heart-catching that made him falter. There had been pain here. Doubt, and weariness, and wishing. There was still fear. Now, before his failing eyes, there was an end to doubt. An end to wishing.

The catch in his throat was too thick. He had to clear it again. He continued to the vows. They spoke. Laughter in their voices. For this moment of laughing, tears had fallen.

The vicar strained to see. He saw the candles, their lights merging into one yellow haze. He saw the shapes of the couple; the witnesses. He thought he saw the animal - yes - its nails were clicking against the flagstones. It had come to sit beside him. He heard it sniff at the hem of his dalmatic. Hesitating, he reached down. The dog licked his hand. The thudding sound must be its tail.

‘Is there a ring?’ he asked. The bridegroom answered.

‘Here.’

For some years now, the rings had been invisible to him. They were too small. But the younger man held out his hand; angled it towards the altar candles. Gold glistened in his palm. On the band were tiny white pearls. They were set into some kind of pattern. The priest peered - could not make it out - and the girl said, gently, ‘It is a gardenia.’

He tried to nod. Speaking onward, he realised he had bowed instead. A weight was on his heart. No weight of pain; only of an answer long sought. So many questions he had asked. His wife gone, so long before him, such a painful sickness. His sons and his daughter, all gone, all young. He had knelt before his altar and asked if anyone was listening. He had asked for signs that never came.

Tonight he had seen beyond his eyes. Love had come. He had felt its touch through the gathering darkness. Love went on, strong as death; strong as time. He needed no sign greater than this.

‘Witnesses?’

The licence crackled as they signed, and stepped out of his view. The final prayers rolled by. His words ceased.

He watched the two shadowy shapes draw together. The wife stretched up and the husband lifted her, and they clung to each other in the silence.


	22. Morning

They woke at noon. Snow was still falling. A gentle grey light filled the castle.

At the Queen’s husky request through the bedcurtains, Skerrett had lit candles in the breakfast room. The dresser sent the chambermaid away and stoked the fire herself. Before she left, she took a final look around the room. All warmth, all soft golden air.

Victoria wore Melbourne’s shirt. Her hands were too heavy to fasten it all the way up. On muddled feet she walked to the window. The world was a dream in silver and white. She whispered, too soft to wake him.

‘Are you sleeping?’

‘That would depend...’

She turned. Through half-open eyes, he watched her pad towards the bed.

‘What would it depend on?’

He reached for her arm - pulled her back down beside him. Their feet tangled.

‘I am awake if you are awake,’ he replied.

He thumbed the long cuff back from her fingers; kissed them one by one. She leaned over him. His chest rose thickly under her hand.

‘We should rise, Lord M.’

‘In which sense, Ma’am?’

Even now she flushed. He spread his hand across her face, following the silken colour. She grazed her teeth around his thumb.

‘I am hungry,' she said. 'Are you not hungry?’

‘Again, that would depend...’

‘What?’ and she leaned closer, his breath against her throat. ‘What does it depend on?’

‘It depends on what I should be hungry for.’

She bit her own thumb. Her hand crept down from his chest. They had heard the clock strike twelve - dispatches, signatures, box after box to go through - hours of work, must begin soon - and there was time, there were hours and hours still free, he was holding her hips and she was aching with the night, aching with the daylight on his skin. She pushed the blankets away. Her legs were liquid, but they raised her. Drowsy, he grasped her hands as she lowered. He kissed them as she shifted and tested, clumsy with sleep. Haloed in her hair, her hands weaving through his, she was an archangel. Heaven made warm and real. She moved with the hazy heat of his eyes, the heat blooming to a glow, the glow that pulled her down to a gasping kiss and his voice dark in her ear. It was a new sunrise, the fire climbing through them. The day had dawned when no earthly power could force them apart.

They clung to each other, and caught their breath. He felt her smile into his skin.

‘Now may we begin the day, Lord M?’

‘I am entirely at your disposal, Ma’am.’

They wore blankets to the breakfast table. Curled close, her legs over his lap and the spaniel dozing on her legs, they ate slowly. Victoria stroked Dash’s head and Melbourne’s scratchy cheek.

‘We must catch up with dispatches,’ she murmured. ‘From yesterday and this morning.’

‘I believe Palmerston would also like an interview.’

‘About his wedding? Oh, that will be nice! He and Emily should dine with us, then.’

‘Not only with us, Ma’am.’

She was too content to sigh. But she turned her cheek against his.

‘Invite your brothers too. I shall invite Harriet and Emma and their husbands. Is that a large enough assembly?’

‘Ample,’ and he chuckled as her hair muffled his mouth. He turned it over his eyes. Beyond the soft mask he heard her giggling. Gently she parted it, and peered through.

‘There was never a handsomer highwayman, Lord M...’

‘Never a lady more beautiful to waylay.’

‘And what must I deliver?’

‘A priceless treasure, Ma’am.’

‘The treasure of...?’

‘...a kiss,’ they smiled together. Dash wagged as their lips brushed. Their hands laced around him.

‘Today we must also go through my Christmas engagements.’

‘We must indeed. Your schedule is very full.’

‘But you will be with me. Whenever it can possibly be managed.’

‘Yes.’ He kissed the warm slope of her shoulder. ‘Thankfully, it will seldom be inappropriate for your Prime Minister to accompany you.’

‘My husband,’ she mumbled into his neck. To say the word brought a slow wonder. ‘Husband,’ and her arms slipped around his chest. For a moment he thought she was weeping, but when she lifted her face it was full of light. She held up her hand. The ring shone, the pearl gardenia a glowing moon against the stars of her eyes.

‘This is real, Lord M. Entirely real. Nothing can change it now.’

‘Thank God.’

At the weary crack in his voice, she hugged him closer. She touched her lips to the shadows under his cheekbones.

‘I have worn you out. I am sorry.’

‘As you once said to me, Ma’am...I do not recall complaining.’

Passing outside the door, Skerrett caught their laughter, and the clink of teacups. She paused a moment. How good they sounded. How right. The dresser was glad - suddenly keenly glad - of the role she had played. Dangerous, yes. Perhaps she had been foolish, signing an illegal licence. Perhaps, some day, that signature would be found and would come to haunt her.

But what did it matter, in the end? She had her bruised past, and she bore it. One more little guilt was not so frightening. And now the Queen was happy.

And the precious dog was yipping. Skerrett grinned to herself, and walked on. 

****

The Duchess of Sutherland and Viscountess Portman turned to each other; reached out to straighten jewellery, neaten wayward ringlets. They could not help their smiles.

‘And we should be afraid,’ Harriet mouthed. ‘We should, should we not?’

‘We should be terrified, my dear. Yet somehow I cannot be.’

‘Nor I...Emma, do you suppose they found some way to marry?’

‘Not within law.’

‘But it was time.’

‘It was past time. When there is such - familiarity - such ease of companionship - it is as well to have a ring.’

‘Did you see the signet?’

‘Yes. Certainly William’s.’

‘She wore it before us as though it were the most natural thing. Somehow it makes me love her even more.’

‘You are a dear girl. And I agree with you.’

The Queen swept into the drawing room, and before they could finish their curtsies she had an arm round each of their waists. She was all in red - a winter rose, Harriet thought - and she glowed, floated.

‘Your Majesty looks so lovely,’ said the Viscountess. Victoria laid her head on her shoulder.

‘You smell lovely, Emma. You both do. And how pretty your hair is, Harriet! I wish I had hair like yours.’ She glanced at the window. ‘I want a walk,’ and she pulled them towards the door. ‘I must fetch Dash first. I mean - if you both wish to come? You don’t find the weather too severe?’

The Duchess shook her head. ‘I find it delightful, Ma’am.’

‘I too,’ Lady Portman replied. ‘Will Your Majesty be cold?’

‘No, no, Emma, not at all, thank you. Shall we go, then?’

They wandered through the gardens with the spaniel at their heels. The snow fell thick, and Dash bit flakes out of the air, and Harriet dangled a ribbon for him to play tug-of-war. The Queen laughed, wishing for her sketchbook. The Viscountess wished for her own book or canvas, to catch the happiness on the beautiful young features, and keep it unfading.

Victoria took her arm. ‘Are you well?’ she asked. ‘You seem anxious.’

‘I am only praying that Your Majesty will always look thus.’

They walked slower. Dimly, through the twirling snowflakes and the warmth that wrapped her, Victoria remembered herself unhappy. She remembered shattering tantrums, and slaps of words at her ladies. Poor little Dash had cowered from her shouting. Many, many times, Lord M had stood pale before it. He had watched her stamp her feet and kick the furniture - throw ornaments, one that broke a cabinet’s glass, another that barely missed his outheld hand - and yet he had never been cruel. She had been cruel to him, miserably, needlessly, and he had echoed her with kindness. With unending gentleness, grounding her, handing her back the snapped pieces of her thoughts. His touch had slowed her terrified heart.

Nor had Emma and Harriet been cruel. They had flinched; they had cried; the Duchess had run away. Once the Viscountess had shouted back, telling her to calm down, for Heaven’s sake, for shame. Yet they had always come back to her.

‘Dearest Emma,’ she said. ‘There is something you will know soon. Something very pleasant.’

Emma willed herself steady. She watched the tiny childish hand tuck more comfortably around her sleeve. The Queen wore thick gloves, but the outline of the new ring showed through. Even the graceful shape of the gardenia.

‘Is there, indeed, Ma’am? I am glad to hear it.’

‘Thank you. That is very kind of you. I am sensible - truly sensible - of how good you and dear Harriet have been to me. I hope you may believe in my gratitude.’

‘It has been our pleasure, Ma’am, just as much as our duty.’

Smiling, they picked a shared path through the snowdrifts. The spaniel spun and leapt; Harriet ran with him, feeling like a little girl. Lady Portman watched the Queen’s radiant face. Victoria looked at her ladies, and Dash, and the snow glittering down. The ring tingled on her hand. No angel could be happier than she.

****

‘Someone’s tired,’ whispered Lord Palmerston.

The words jerked Melbourne out of sleep. The Prime Minister sat up. Dozing in the hard chair had left his neck stiff. He felt it, gingerly, as the other Viscount sat down on the edge of his desk. Palmerston helped himself to a glass of sherry.

‘William, do you need some brotherly advice?’

‘We are not brothers yet. Or did I sleep through the ceremony?’

‘You might well have. You look tired as a pit pony. What have you been doing?’

Melbourne was abruptly tempted to tell the truth. To say - I have been with my wife. His Foreign Secretary was unshockable. The shrewd eyes, he knew from long acquaintance, would turn to unfeigned concern. The voice so brash in Parliament would ask a few careful, sympathetic questions. The following tawdry joke would break away all awkwardness. Then Palmerston would threaten to tell Emily that her brother had married without her, and they would mime a few shoves and punches, and drink another glass, before the next debate began and they walked back into the House.

He could not say it. Not yet - not in this heavy firelit room, previous ministers glowering down from their portraits - not with sleep fogging his head. Not while it still seemed a dream. In absent moments, between debates and speeches, he still forgot. He was still alone. The lost widower. His ageing limbs were strung together with memory and regret. Tonight he would return, by himself, to Brocket Hall and to his gallery of phantoms.

Reality never returned quietly. It jumped back, raw, eager, full of her swift sweetness. Each time he remembered, wonder dawned again, gold as that morning’s sun. He felt her breath, her hair falling over his skin, his hands on her face. He blushed at terrible times. Peel had joked about it in the House. All the parties had laughed, all together, no malice.

‘Our right honourable colleague is in love,’ the Duke of Wellington had coughed. The laughter had warmed, and the Whig had pretended to hide behind his sleeve. But he had needed the brief darkness - the illusion of solitude - five seconds to gather a million shimmering thoughts, and turn them back to opium and pocket boroughs and Repeal, and speak on without his smile overpowering his voice.

Now, with Palmerston before him, it seemed more real than ever. His sister adored this man - this man adored Emily, had loved her so long, waited so long - and with her husband’s death they had permission to marry. The Queen had granted it. As her Prime Minister, he had asked her to the wedding. As her husband, he would attend it at her side. She had made his sister and his friend happy. And him she had made happy beyond Heaven, beyond eternity.

‘You’ll have some news soon,’ he said. ‘It will cause you some trouble. I’m sorry.’

‘Not too sorry. I am looking at a contented man, William. You please my eyes.’

The Foreign Secretary filled a glass, and held it out. Melbourne took it.

‘It is very -’

‘- early to be drinking, yes, Sir, it is. Also early to be falling asleep in your chair. Might a certain lovely little someone have exhausted you?’

‘Might you want this sherry on your coat?’

‘Don’t even consider it. Emily buttoned these buttons. I would call you out.’

‘Then do me the favour of keeping your insinuations behind your teeth.’

‘You need not ask. I have a very great fondness for the young lady in question. She has given me my joy.’

‘For God’s sake, Henry!’

‘Oh, open your ears, would you? Both Houses know you’re going to marry. Everyone is dancing before the storm breaks. Yes, I know it may drown us all! But this could never be helped, any more than Emily and I could be helped. We are for each other. You are for the Queen. She is for you.’

Melbourne took a long drink. Again he felt himself blushing. Palmerston guffawed.

‘Ah, look at the face of innocence! But - but, William - you are taking great care, are you not? At least until the engagement is announced.’

‘I am not a fool. Of course I am taking -’

Palmerston watched him slow. And whiten. Shakily Melbourne set down his glass.

‘William. Tell me the meaning of that ghastly face, please.’

‘It means - I do - she did - not. God. Oh, God.’

‘Am I to understand...?’

‘You understand perfectly well.’

Melbourne stood. Dizzy fear swayed him forwards, and he caught himself on the desk. The other man was at his shoulder.

‘More sherry. Come on. Drink up.’

‘Drink it yourself.’

‘Gladly,’ and Palmerston drained the glass. ‘Lord above, William. You are a brilliant imbecile.’

‘It was - we slept late - only just woken. Half asleep. I did not...I did not think at all.’

‘Once. So this was once. No panicking, man.’

And yet, he thought, it would be like them. Perfectly like them. The second greatest love he had ever encountered was brewing up the greatest storm of his career. They might as well add some extra lightning to the deluge.

With difficulty, he chewed his smile back. The Prime Minister looked up at him, and the smile reappeared.

‘William, it is alarming, and I must reiterate that you’re a brilliant fool. However...’

He rested his hand on Melbourne’s shoulder. Melbourne straightened up - breathed in - breathed out. The tensing of his chest was not panic. The warmth in his face had settled into his heartbeat. He wiped his eyes. They were growing damp.

‘Tomorrow it will be December,’ he said. The other man nodded.

‘Christmas weddings are charming.’

‘She loves the snow.’

Melbourne reached for his overcoat. Palmerston stood in the way.

‘Debate, William. Then you can go.’

‘I need to see the Queen.’

‘What you need is to keep the Tories laughing. Please, old man, finish the session. She won’t deliver within three hours.’

‘You are an utter scoundrel.’

‘Yes, and I know whereof I speak. I’m the father of your niece. Didn’t you know?’

‘Of course not, Palmerston, I am the sole man in Christendom who did not know...’

They elbowed each other. They shook hands - gripped hard. Then Palmerston opened the door, and they joined the crowd hurrying down the corridor. Back in the room they had left, the clock struck. A draught curled the hem of the overcoat, and flickered the fire. The snow blew its soft white flowers past the window.


	23. Hope

The Queen and the Prime Minister met late in the evening, outside the palace doors, amidst the sweeping white gusts where no-one else could see them. He bent, kissed her bare palms; pressed his cheek briefly to hers. She whispered a kiss into his temple.

‘You’re tired,’ she said. ‘Did the debate go well?’

‘Yes. Very well indeed.’

‘Then what has upset you?’

Her face was framed in snow-spangled hair. Her eyes were shadowed to grey. She looked so young that she could be a child herself.

She felt the shiver crawl through him. Taking his hands, she walked backwards, led him to the doors - led him past the footmen, who looked at the ceiling. She led him up the stairs, to the drawing room with the brightest fire, sat him down on the sofa, and sat beside him.

They were indoors, he noticed. He still saw the snow, her eyes, huge against its pallor. But here her gaze was blue again. Her hands were pulling off his coat. Her lips were hot on his cold cheek.

‘Tell me, Lord M. Tell me what the matter is.’

‘I made a mistake.’

‘When?’

‘This morning.’

‘I don’t remember any mistakes...’

She leaned her head against his. He closed his eyes.

‘Ma’am, this morning - when we - I did not do what I should have done. What I had done before.’

He was so still. Still as the air. As his words fell into sense, her heart jumped - darted like blown sunlight, like starlight, bouncing like Dash in the snow, flying - but he did not move.

She wanted to stand up. She wanted to leap and spin and scream. Something kept her by him, holding him, her brow against his temple.

‘Then,’ she said, ‘then are we to have a child now?’

So simply she asked. Voiceless, he reached for her hand. He pressed it over his face.

His lips shook. She thought he might crumble. She might watch him disintegrate - tremble to fragments. Only her hands could keep him together.

‘Don’t be frightened. I am here with you.’

He swallowed. She was here. She flamed against the ice of his fear. Long, long ago, she had clung to him as he now clung to her. He kissed her palm again. He mouthed it to her skin: I love you so. You will never know how much.

She felt his lips moving. His jaw moved, its clean strong line against her hand. Pictures sketched themselves into her thoughts. A little boy with features as handsome as his. Fine bones, wild curls, inquisitive blue eyes. Round eyes. Or a little clever girl bubbling out words. Her voice sparkling, her smile tender.

Victoria smiled. Her smile deepened and deepened. It would grow too large for her body. She was too small to hold such a shimmering joy. Surely it must overflow; flow into him.

There were snowflakes in his hair. She breathed on them. Water trickled down his cheek. She touched her mouth, tongue, to the slow drops.

Her warmth wound through him. So easily she could fill his mind. In her closeness, her voice, all shadows could be forgotten. Her happiness - the happiness he felt as though it were soaking through his skin, glowing through his blood - could fill him entirely. He could let all that he feared be swept away.

He wanted to. Painfully he wanted to; wanted to breathe deep, to draw out the cold from his heart. But he could not. He was older, and truth was in that cold, and he had to fear for both of them.

‘Ma’am, listen to me.’

‘I have been listening. You were not speaking.’

Her smile was burning away his reason. He turned his lips to her wrist. Then he sat back, and drew her into his lap. Already he saw the difference in his own grasp. He held her as if she were softer. When he touched her face, cradled it, she laid her hands over his and pressed them in.

‘Do not change, Lord M.’

She half laughed. Yet a different fear was coming to her. He saw the question in her gaze. She who had borne too much loneliness. She who held so tight to what she loved. And he had to pull her closer. He had to tangle his hands in her damp hair, and feel the comfort of her arms around him, and the beat of two hearts.

‘I am the same, Ma’am.’

‘Then talk to me,’ and she tucked one leg around his hips. ‘What did you wish to say?’

‘That this may not...this is no more than a possibility.’ He held the curve of her waist. His thumbs smoothed over her stomach. ‘Ma’am, it was only once.’

‘I hope that once was enough to make it so.’

Words stopped at his throat. He knew what they should be. They should be warnings; logic; dangers. But they were not words of his fear. Not even of his mind. They were of his heart, they were an echo of her hope, a yes, a please, God. Make it true.

He could not speak them. She found them in his eyes.

Suddenly her smile was a sob. It turned into a mousy squeak - startled him into laughing. As she giggled, she wrapped her arms around his neck, hid her face against his hair.

‘Ma’am, we shall have to -’

‘- have the second wedding soon. I know. How soon?’

‘To be safe...Christmas.’

‘Then I must address the Privy Council tomorrow.’

He grew quiet. She drew back enough to look at his face. At last she saw him smiling. A smile that held her like his arms. All his statesman’s words had left him. He spoke his pride without sound. His admiration - her loveliness, courage, sweetness.

She opened her hands. He opened his hands, and laid them to hers. Palm to palm, they stared at each other. The firelight glittered on the ring; the pearl gardenia.

‘Stay here a while,’ she said. ‘Will you, please?’

‘I would not wish to be anywhere else.’

‘And you must tell me more of the debate.’

‘I shall be pleased to.’

‘And...and...Lord M, whatever would Dash think of a baby?’


	24. Carriages

In a lurching rumble of wheels, the Privy Counsellors approached the palace. Their morning summons had brought them out on dangerous roads. The carriages had swayed through drifts, ice, the buffet of the wind. Each held an anxious man.

‘Naturally,’ the Duke of Wellington muttered to himself, looking through the frosted window, ‘naturally Peel is trying to overtake...’

Peel’s coachman winced at the angry knocking from within his carriage. The horses could not get up any more speed. There was no grip for the wheels. At a trot, they were already slipping. Several corners had been taken sideways. He pulled his driving cloak higher round his ears, and pretended not to hear.

The Duke of Sussex kept his nose warm in the steam of his cocoa. Perhaps a few too many splashes had landed on his robes, but his little niece would not blame him for that. A man could not be expected to endure such a journey without a hot drink and a heavy driving-rug. Furthermore, she was surely about to inflict a great deal of trouble on them all. He would leave the elegance to her handsome intended. A desultory rub did not improve the worst stain. He stuffed his handkerchief back into his pocket, fished a biscuit from his other pocket, and dipped it contentedly into the mug.

Farther back in line, Charles Greville sat by his box of ink and paper, and kept his writing hand supple with the cricket ball he tossed up and caught; squeezed; balanced on the back of his hand, and threw again. One of his horses had cast a shoe, barely out of their own driveway. His driver had done well to catch up to the procession. Greville wanted to hear everything. Every ripple of gossip, every acid word from Wellington, every time Peel knocked into some precious piece of furniture - every fascinating glance between the Queen and her Whig - he must catch it all. If he could not use it in his official account, he could treasure it up in his diaries. What a day to be at the Palace. He would feel its stones tremble beneath him.

 

Kneeling, with the end of the spool between her teeth, Skerrett whipped a fresh line of stitches around the Queen’s hem. The gown had been delivered with an imposing train. Victoria had scowled. Her dresser had run down to the kitchens, taken Mr Francatelli’s sharpest scissors and his cheeky little murmur, and spent ten minutes sawing through the fabric. It will be ruined, she had miserably thought, this will be my fault, what if I lose my place, what if...? - until she had seen the basket of flowers nearly as large as herself sitting by the fire. When she asked, the Queen’s scowl had washed off like powder.

‘Oh, what a pretty idea! What should I do without you?’

Now the hem was ringed with fresh hothouse flowers. The mutilated silk was concealed. Victoria had obediently spun around; Skerrett had caught the blooms that flew off, and sewed them back more tightly. The Queen danced round and round. No more were coming away. She spun and spun and laughed.

‘How beautiful, how lovely! It looks like springtime!’

The dresser grinned with her. Your Majesty looks like springtime, she silently answered. Even the spaniel was sitting still to admire her. New snow gusted past the window, but as Victoria bounced up to it she was all shining colour.

‘Skerrett,’ she whispered. She rubbed a circle on the glass, where her breath fogged. ‘They’re almost here.’

Skerrett peered past her. Through the swirl of flakes, the carriages were struggling towards the gateway. One, rushing, skidded and slewed round - its horses collided, two wheels lifted, and for a moment the Queen and her dresser were drawing the same shocked breath. But the heavy coach ahead stopped and backed. Its wall struck the wall of the tipping Clarence and knocked it back onto four wheels. The carriages straightened. Jaggedly the line rolled on.

Victoria sighed. ‘I’m sure that was Sir Robert,’ and she stroked Dash’s head. ‘He will be in such a terrible humour. We shall need more wine...and some cakes.’

‘Shall I go and ask, Madam?’

‘Yes, do, but - why, don’t ask the stewards, Skerrett. Go back to the kitchens!’

Skerrett slipped out of the room again, reddening, giggling. Left alone, Victoria sat down suddenly on the window seat. At once the dog was at her skirts, jumping to be helped up. She lifted him. He covered her cheek with kisses. His conker eyes glowed with sympathy.

‘Oh, Dash. Thank you. Sweetest dear.’

Lord M had not woken with her that morning. They had been up very late, playing cards, and at the chimes of midnight they had crept to the stables for a ride through the moonlit snow. By the lake’s ice, they had dismounted and wandered along the shore, her shawl around them both, their hands clasped in his coat pocket. The walk had ended with snowballs and running, shrieks that made the horses shy, and a shower of white thrown out across the ice as they fell into the deepest drift and clung to each other, cold lips and the hot breath of laughter, his hair jewelled with white and her nose gently dabbed with it as she kissed his fingers. When they had last run through the cold night, they had been washing themselves clean. Clean of spattered blood and of the echoing gunshots. This time had been for the joy of running.

They had run themselves tired. Side by side, they walked their horses back. The moon was bright enough for their hands to draw shadow puppets on the snow. Rabbits and crocodiles and broad-winged birds flickered along. Victoria wove her fingers together and swung them to and fro. Melbourne shook his head. He could not resist laying his closed hand in hers - the shadow cradle filled, slowly rocking.

At the stroke of one, she was too drowsy to pull on her own nightgown. He tied its ribbons, and tucked Dash in at her shoulder, and lay beside them until they drifted into a snuffling sleep.

Dawn was painting the clouds by the time he reached Brocket. He should have gone to his London house. The journey would have been five times shorter; he might have caught a few hours’ sleep. Yet here he could think. Before he faced the Privy Council, he could walk amidst the past. He could listen to the ghosts who still lingered. From the hothouses that once had made him weep with pain, he could pick a basket for the Queen. Flowers for her beauty. Flowers for her impossible bravery.

Victoria had summoned him at the same hour as she summoned the other Counsellors. Receiving the giant basket of gardenias and roses, she had sent a note back with the messenger. He opened it at the door of the Hall. ‘I love you,’ it read, and ‘Dash loves you too. He wants you to be here at five. The private gateway.’

On the window seat, the spaniel rolled onto his back. Her nerves had to give way before his waving paws, and the furry speckling on his belly. He thumped his healing leg as she scratched the speckles.

‘Dear darling.’ She kissed his cold nose. ‘I wish I could take you with me.’

He flattened his ears. At the wish in her voice, he wagged, wagged, panted. What a difference he had made at the ball. How he had unknotted its tensions.

She stood; ran her finger along her tiara. It did not tilt.

‘You shall have treats later, Dashie. But I must not take you. Not even on your best behaviour. It would look so very childish. Today I must be as old as possible.’

She leaned down, and hid her face a moment in his fur. At the door, Skerrett tiptoed backwards. The dresser still heard the Queen’s muffled words.

‘Perhaps another little someone will come with me, Dash. Someone we have not met yet.’

 

Wellington stalked through the snow, and poked his finger into Peel’s chest.

‘Your coachman drives like a hog, sir.’

‘Yours drove into mine!’

‘Yes, indeed he did, at my order - to stop you from overturning. I hope there was no damage to my coach.’

‘Your Grace,’ said the Archbishop of York, ‘please.’

Canterbury rustled up behind him, and the Bishop of London followed. Under their three frowns, Peel rubbed his breastbone. Wellington puffed a long sigh.

‘Very well, very well, gentlemen. However, I have a warning for you, since vulgar gossip may not have reached holy ears. The purpose of our audience today -’

‘Our Sovereign is about to marry her Prime Minister,’ replied Canterbury. ‘My ears, at least, are still flesh and blood.’

The Bishop chuckled. ‘Mine too,’ he added. ‘Your Grace may be better served by watching his own feet. The Queen’s husband of choice is no Tory, I believe...’

The Duke gave them a look colder than the air. He took Peel’s arm, and towed him off. Lord Cottenham sidled by. For once, the Lord Chancellor glumly reminded himself, Melbourne would not be keeping these fellows calm.

 

The Queen stood on the threshold of the chosen room. She knew it securely, after two years of audiences. The walls were richly papered, the glass richly curtained, and the chandeliers cast a thick light. On her instruction, all the fires had been lit.

It was just the right temperature. Either side of the small gilt throne, there were bouquets, furling up from tall vases. There was floor enough for the whole Council to sit or stand, and the servants to move about. There was a table covered with food, and another covered with glasses. Downstairs, the stewards were preparing.

Surely - surely - the Counsellors could not be so very angry here. And if they were, she had Dash to hold and Lord M to hold her. She would survive it.

Her stomach wobbled. Oh, I do not want their anger, she thought to the empty chamber. I know it will come. But I have done all I can. I have been my very best. I want them to be kind. Most of all, I want them to be kind to Lord M.

Swift steps came along the passageway. She found herself steadying. At last, the warmth of the fires was soaking into her. She reached back and he took her hand.

‘Are you ready, Ma’am?’

‘I am ready.’

She tipped her head onto his shoulder. His arm wrapped with hers around her waist, her arm bending up around his neck. In the deep comfort of their kiss, he felt her fear.

She pulled away far enough to look at him. He was pale, so pale, but he smiled at her. She tried to keep her smile. He touched her cheeks, where the dimples should be. Her mouth trembled crooked.

Politics had brought him so many terrors. It had accustomed him to the moment of white blindness - the draining away of time, the ground cracking, grinding wide enough to swallow him and everything he had tried, everything he had hoped. This was the greatest terror of all. Only if she bore her fear could he bear his own.

He gathered her closer. Her heels lifted from the floor. He kissed her throat - kissed her pulse in it - kissed the pulse in her wrist. With a stuttering gasp, she pressed her brow to his temple.

‘You must let me breathe, Lord M, I have to announce something to the Council...’

‘What is that something?’

‘Something frightening.’

‘Nothing frightens you.’

‘I wish it were true!’

‘Here is another truth. You have the strength of millions, and, even if I did not love you for every other reason, I would love you for that alone.’

The Council was walking towards the room. From the doorway they heard each voice, growing quickly louder. Victoria’s heart lurched. Melbourne felt it - felt his heart follow.

She clutched his lips back to hers. One more endless instant of his mouth, his skin, his hair curling between her fingers. One more instant to turn and push so close that his heart was beating in her chest.

‘Then,’ she rushed, ‘I must tell you a truth.'

'Which truth in particular, Ma'am?'

Doors were opening, only a passage or two away. She framed his face in her hands. He covered her hands with his. She smiled until her dimples showed and she saw her smile reflected in his eyes.

‘No matter what comes to us now, Lord M, it will be ours. It will come of us together and we shall be together. I have you, and so I have the world. If I lose my crown for it, I shall mourn - but I shall mourn with you. And when the mourning is over, I hope - I believe - that we shall have our child in our arms.’

At the far end of the passage, the doors opened. The Queen hurried out of the Council’s sight. The Prime Minister wiped his eyes, and followed her.


	25. Toast

The Privy Counsellors stepped into an idyll. Before they could register where they were, their chill was vanishing between four blazing fireplaces. Damp shoes could hardly irritate them when glasses of superb wine were in their hands. The Duke of Sussex trundled to the table of food; an armchair was brought before he could think of asking for it. He straightened his skullcap and leaned into the cushions, happy. If this was the kind of strategy the dear girl had learned from Melbourne, she could not have made a better choice of lover. What a shame she had to marry the fellow.

Peel pushed his way to the bookcases. Since his invitation to the Council, he had been eager to see the Palace’s libraries. Only a few hundred books were in this room. He was already impressed. Without asking, he pulled out a fat new volume of Dickens, and took it to the light of the nearest chandelier.

Wellington and the Archbishop of York walked in opposite directions along the row of paintings. They met in front of a Stubbs canvas. Both smiled, in familiar admiration. They squeezed up thinner smiles for each other.

‘Her Majesty has chosen pleasant surroundings,’ said the priest. The Duke accepted a second glass of wine.

‘She has indeed. God bless her.’

For a short while, most of the politicians had divided into their respective parties. The men outside politics had kept together. In the excellence of the wine and food, the little groups began unwinding. Greville leaned on a mantelpiece, warmed his legs, and watched.

He saw the new Lord Chamberlain join the Queen’s uncle beside the table of food. Their conversation grew quickly so absorbing that the Earl sat down on the arm of the Duke’s chair, and they picked candied fruits from the same bowl.

He heard Wellington talking with the three priests. The Stubbs had led them to speak of horses. The general, despite himself, was relaxing. The profile beloved of all caricaturists was softening into dry friendliness.

He saw the highest judges of the land drinking with Whigs and Tories. Those who held the scales of justice held their wine, smiled on the politicians who to them seemed so very boyish, and discussed the Queen’s summons. All sought reassurance from one another. There was tension in the room, yes, and plenty of it - and substantially less than there might have been. Greville opened his writing box and began to take notes.

He made a sketch of Peel. The man for whom the Queen had punctured tradition, asking a second opposition leader into her Council, was wholly engrossed in his book. Face half hidden by the pages, he was wandering back and forth, frequently barging into another Counsellor - reacting with a gruff apology or no apology at all - and occasionally swerving past the tables for a slice of cake and a fresh glass, which he juggled with surprising deftness. He walked slowly past Greville, unaware that he was being caught in ink and a few scribbled words.

In the anteroom beyond the far wall - behind the little gilt throne and the curling vases of flowers - the Queen had given up looking through the peephole. A kind of giddiness had taken her. Her skin pricked with nervousness, her eyes pricked with it; Lord M had wiped tears from her face before she knew she had shed them. She had reached up to rub colour into his cheeks. The time was pulling shorter and shorter. The sound of the Counsellors’ shoes on the floorboards beat out its rhythm. And suddenly she had turned to her husband, reaching out, saying ‘Dance with me. Yes, now.’

He did not need to ask why. The tension was ticking through his blood. He caught her hand and waist and spun her into the restless beat. They swept across the lamplight of the anteroom, through the sweet rustle of the snow against the long windows, through their own stifled laughter, through the heavy swish of her skirt. They danced from window to window, corner to corner. She gripped the anchor of his hand. The lights that sparked from her tiara whirled across his face. He turned her faster and faster. If only they could go on turning forever. He would hold her in safety, and her flush and her smile would never fade.

Out in the main room, the Bishop of London was enjoying its view over his city. An odd sound made him surreptitiously scratch his ear. What could it be? He shook his head, and listened again. It sounded for all the world as though people were dancing. Rather charming, he thought, with a chuckle. At least someone here has nothing to worry about.

The Counsellors were settled. The fires had dried their shoes. The wine had smoothed down a little more of their tension. Fear of the Queen’s announcement, so sharp during their cold journey, rested less harshly in their minds. Most had talked their worries through. Those worries might not have diminished, but knowing them shared by twenty other men made them seem manageable.

The stewards offered brandy. Taking his glass, the Duke of Sussex raised it.

‘You are good men, one and all,’ he smiled. ‘Let us have a toast to my niece’s hospitality.’

‘Her Majesty’s hospitality,’ echoed most of the room, and drank. Wellington found he had said ‘happiness’.

A moment’s lull rolled by. Then those sitting stood up. The door was opening.

‘Her Majesty the Queen!’

Bows brought their eyes to the floor. They heard her walk in. They heard two sets of steps, the second behind hers, and quieter. They looked up.

One sigh passed through the crowd. One faint shared smile came after. The Queen wore a gown the pink of sunrise. Flowers were on her skirt; from her tiara, a fall of soft curls hung down above her shoulders. The glow of her astonishing eyes, her blush rich as the roses, were the brightest ornaments of all.

She looked like the sweethearts of the Counsellors’ youth. For the ones attached to their wives, she looked like their wedding day. The senior members, their children her age and older, wished that their daughters looked as she did. So sure, so contented; so loved.

Peel set down his book. Greville began writing, the fastest shorthand, eyes flicking up and down. Wellington cleared his throat. Unbidden to his thoughts, there came: I wish I had had a daughter.

Victoria swallowed, and wetted her lips. She wanted to look behind her. As they walked in, Lord M had whispered ‘You are beautiful,’ and she wore the words like another jewel, another flower. He was there. He was close behind, almost close enough to touch.

‘I have caused you to be summoned here,’ she said, ‘in order that I may acquaint you with my resolution in a matter of high importance.’

Some of the Counsellors were looking past her. They were noticing the sash the Prime Minister wore, and the star. Melbourne looked back at them. He could hold his gaze level. There had been more eyes on him through Caro’s scandal. There would be many more eyes, many eyes more hostile, after Victoria’s words passed outside this room.

‘It is my intention and it is my resolution to bind myself in marriage with the Viscount Melbourne.’

A rasp of air - breaths sucked in, breaths let out quiet and low. It was certain. Any of them who had doubted, wondered, wished the rumours not to be true...it was done. The Duke of Sussex abruptly covered his eyes.

‘I have not come to this day without long and careful consideration. Deeply sensible of my responsibility, I wish you to know this a decision most solemnly made.’

She heard him shift behind her. His boot scuffed against the dais. She imagined his hand over hers. The fit of their fingers - his lips on her cheek. Again she swallowed.

‘This marriage will secure my domestic felicity. I do not yet profess to know what dissonance may appear between that felicity and the interests of my subjects. I think fit to tell you that I stand ready to face all such consequences as will ensue. With the blessing of Almighty God, I hope to guard my people and my government from harm and from embarrassment.’

Her throat was aching. Perhaps it was her heart aching, hurting worse and worse, as her eyes strayed over the crowd. Uncle Sussex could not look at her. The rest of them were looking at her and at Lord M. Some were even smiling, smiles like soldiers facing an unwinnable battle.

‘I wish you to know...I wish you to be apprised that I have created Lord Melbourne a Knight of the Garter. I shall rely on your wisdom in the choosing of his royal title.’

If it is needed, answered her fear - if you are still Queen.

‘At this earliest possible period, I wish also to inform you of the time at which we intend to marry. I believe that Christmas, as a season of celebration across my Kingdom, would be appropriate.’

Now there was noise. Now Peel was swearing, and being elbowed by Wellington. Her uncle crammed two slices of cake into his mouth at once - choked, and the Earl of Uxbridge thumped his back. Cabinet ministers were turning ghastly colours. And - in the passageway, puffing, cloak still on and spattered with muddy snow - Lord Palmerston almost fainted with laughter. He was too far beyond the doorway for Victoria to see. Melbourne saw him clearly. The Foreign Secretary wagged his finger; mimed a distended stomach.

‘Three weeks away!’ the Duke of Sussex groaned. The Queen flinched. She could not go to reassure him. She could not offer any of them reassurance.

‘Although,’ she wavered, ‘although at present I may not be deserving of your goodwill, I would most gratefully be assured of your patience. I persuade myself that you know my loyalty to my subjects, and to my Empire, and to the sovereign duty which demands that - no matter by what means - I act for the benefit of all my people.’

Melbourne read Peel’s lips. ‘Three weeks to prepare for the Apocalypse,’ he mouthed. One of the priests shushed him. He buried his nose in his brandy, and his shoulders slumped.

The Prime Minister looked to the Queen. Her hands were shaking. She had read the Tory’s words as well.

Silence lay over the room. Wellington’s arms were crossed. Peel did not take his face out of his glass. The Bishop was chewing his lip, the Lord Chancellor was staring at the floor, the Lord Chamberlain’s mouth was hanging open. Victoria had been afraid she might cry afresh - she might cry before the throne, before such an audience. They looked more likely to cry than she.

Melbourne caught a movement outside the door. The other Whig was waving for his attention. Forwards, Palmerston broadly motioned, go forwards.

He had no more reason to stay back. The effort it was costing Victoria to stand so straight - he felt it in all his bones. He peered around her, towards Wellington. The Duke frowned. The irked flick of his finger gave the same order as Palmerston’s arm.

He stepped forwards, up to her shoulder. He still stood behind his Queen; now his wife could feel him there, hear him breathe, touch his hand if she needed to. She let herself glance round. In her eyes was his own drained relief. It was done.

Wellington still held half a glass of brandy. He swirled it. He looked from Peel to the priests, the justices, the flock of slack-jawed Whigs.

‘Your Majesty,’ he said. ‘I shall speak bluntly. Three weeks is a poor time to manage such a shock for the populace. It is also a length of time likely to arouse suspicion. Would a later date not be more suitable?’

The Queen’s blush was no longer of pleasure. It was the blush of a tired woman, approaching humiliation. Melbourne was touching her now - touching her sleeve, looking down at the side of her face. He whispered something. She shook her head. The strain in her voice made the Duke sigh.

‘Your Grace, I understand both difficulties, and many further. It is necessary that the ceremony take place at Christmas. I must ask your forgiveness.’

A pained ripple passed through the crowd. No, they murmured. Yes - you must certainly ask. Silly girl. Damn the man. Poor man. Poor girl.

The general held up his glass - the shadow of a second toast. Other glasses rose around him. Peel jerked his glass higher than the Duke’s, spilling a few drops.

‘Let us hope that the Christmas weather is less intolerable,’ he frowned. The Queen’s uncle coughed an ‘Amen...’

Wellington bowed to Victoria. Then he bowed his head to Melbourne.

‘Well, Viscount,’ he said, ‘let us be thankful for one thing. At least you’re not a Papist.’


	26. Emily

THE RUMOURS PROVE TRUE: QUEEN TO WED LORD MELBOURNE

QUEEN VICTORIA TO WED POLITICIAN

PRIVY COUNCIL INFORMED: QUEEN TO MARRY WHIG

OUR QUEEN ENGAGED TO PRIME MINISTER

The front pages were shocked white faces. Their early editions sold out within ten minutes. The presses chugged on and the headlines raced from cities to towns to countryside, to students dragging their headaches out of bed, to village shops whose bells clanged until they fell from the doors, to cathedrals where the day’s first Mass began late - choir and priest and congregation all engrossed in their papers - to collieries and steelworks where the only reading man shouted out the news to a thousand others. The headlines crossed the Channel, devoured the newspapers of Europe, and stormed on over the world, meeting the sunrise, while over snow-cloaked London the darkness lingered.

‘Where is Drina?’ called the Duchess to Lehzen. ‘Has she gone into Hertfordshire?’

The governess turned with a look of sharp contempt.

‘No, Your Highness. She is of course to stay here.’

Melbourne was still trying to persuade his wife. For her to remain in London would impress some with her steadfastness; some it would convince of her arrogance, her indifference to public feeling; some would not care; some would know where to bring their wrath. The potential benefit did not equal the potential harm.

‘Come away,’ he murmured into the nape of her neck. ‘Please, Ma’am. Please come with me to Brocket.’

Her hands fidgeted in his. From the highest window she knew of, they could stand and watch the city wake from night. Lights were kindling everywhere. The factories were starting up; fingers of red-glowing smoke caressed the blurry sky. Carriage lamps swung along the streets. 

On the drifted Mall, people were walking with lanterns. Hundreds of little lights were crowding to the palace gates. When Melbourne first saw them he had gasped, thinking of the guards standing by, fearing fifty would not be enough. Victoria had taken his arms and fastened them around her.

‘They are curious, Lord M.’ She bent her head back to kiss his unshaven jaw. ‘If they were very angry, they would be carrying torches and pitchforks.’

‘Wherever would they find pitchforks in the heart of the city?’

Giggling, she brushed her teeth to his skin. His shudder ran through them both. She stood in her nightgown, he in his shirtsleeves. She pressed back against him, and licked where she had lightly bitten. He tried to will the coiling heat from his blood.

‘Ma’am, I would humbly suggest that this is not the moment...’

‘Why, if a furious mob is to break down the gates and take me to the block, will you not ravish me one last time?’

He dropped his head to her shoulder. She giggled on, until she felt how still he was. Quickly she pressed her lips into his hair. ‘I am sorry,’ and she pushed his curls back, found more of his skin to kiss. ‘Forgive me, please.’

‘Remember my age,’ he sighed.

‘I will not do so!’

‘Remember I am only a foolish, fond old man, and you are the spirit of courage, and while you may joke about the block while a crowd stands outside...’

‘A peaceful crowd...’

‘...I cannot laugh at it, Ma’am. Not even though the joke was yours.’

‘Then do not laugh. Kiss me instead.’

He kissed her collarbone, her earlobe, her cheek. She guided him to her lips. In the soaking heat of her breath, in her pulse so fiercely strong, he could lose even this fear. Yet thus he would lose himself. He opened his mouth to hers, kissed her until her skin bloomed golden pink and her eyes were shining, and then, her feet on his feet, he walked slowly forwards to the glass; pointed to the flickering mass of lanterns, so far below.

‘My darling,’ he said, ‘look.’

She crooked her arms up around his neck. Hair to chin, they watched the throng grow. Through the thin glass came the sound of voices; no shouting. The people only talked.

‘Very well. I am looking. They are still peaceful.’

Her smile soothed him. Kissing her dimples, he thought he must always find reassurance in that smile - and this morning he must not give way, not be soothed.

‘They may change at any time, Ma’am.’

‘Yet I shall not go.’

She tightened her arms around his neck. He tightened his around her waist, the familiar soft warmth of her abdomen. If he could only tell. If there were any earthly way to know for certain, to know that she held another life beyond her own, surely he could convince her to leave.

‘No, Lord M. Even if we could know, and be certain...’

‘How is it that you read my very heart?’

‘Because your heart is my heart now.’

‘And, Ma’am, do you feel all that I feel?’

‘I hope so. Why, ought I not to do so? Shall I be shocked by what I discover?’

Her mouth was back to his jaw. With gentleness, but too great a haste, he straightened up, bringing his face out of reach. At the instant hurt, angry hurt, that filled her eyes, he did not need to think; he needed to lean down again, and bear the reproach of her clinging arms, the hard push of her body that spoke of possession and ownership and that he loved with all the rest of her. How long? he wondered, touching her lips, running his lips across her creased brow. How long would she feel each slight withdrawal as snub and rejection? If she could in truth read all his heart - how easy it would be to convince her. No matter how many years it might take him, she would know it, and he would count the time valuably spent. Some day, she would know herself entirely wanted.

‘I adore you,’ he whispered. ‘Never doubt that.’

‘You must not...you should not blame me. I have not been so much adored.’

‘I know it. I shall always be sorry for it.’

She tangled her fingers through his hair. His eyes reflected the lanterns of the crowd. He gazed at her as though she were everything precious in the world.

‘Lord M, you have all my heart.’

‘Save for Dash’s share, Ma’am, which I should never wish to usurp.’

‘That is quite a different heart. I have one for each of you.’

Despite her smile, her dimples reappearing, he saw the hurt linger, faint in her eyes. He kissed their corners. Her lashes lowered, and he kissed their tickling flutter.

‘Where is Dash?’ he asked.

‘With my dresser. He likes her enough not to be too naughty.’

‘Ah, but naughty or not, he’s always charming.’

‘And he’s eaten so many of your gloves!’

‘Amazing numbers of my shoes vanished while he was at Brocket.’ He clasped her hands again. ‘Speaking of Brocket, Ma’am...’

‘I am quite sincere in my decision.’

She tried to slow her breathing. His hand was on her thin nightgown, smoothing up from her hip. He kissed the side of her neck.

‘No-o. No! Do not try to distract me with kisses.’

‘With all due respect, didn’t you yourself -’

‘Lord M, I hereby impose my monopoly on that particular method of distraction.’

They were already laughing at each other. Even now they could ground themselves in each other’s laughter. She held up her ringed hand, and he kissed the tiny gardenia of pearls, the gold that held her skin so tenderly.

 

****

 

Lady Cowper leaned over the bed and patted at her almost-husband. He curled further into the blankets.

‘Mmm. Early, my love.’

‘My God, Henry, who cares for that? I have the Times.’

‘Rioting on the Mall...?’

The pat of her palm became the poke of her finger. ‘Wake up! Did you know about this? Oh, do stop snoring, I’m hardly likely to believe you.’

The Viscount turned to face her; picked up a pillow like a shield.

‘My love, William made me promise...’

‘...not to tell me until the Privy Council was told? You mean that you and my wretched brother conspired to keep me in ignorance?’

‘Only for one day! Protocol, my dear - he hadn’t meant to tell me in the first place! And when I arrived home from the Council, you had already retired. You look so lovely asleep that I couldn’t bear to wake you.’

‘Flatterer. You are not forgiven.’

With a brief thump of her fist into the pillow, she sat down beside him. The paper crackled open between them.

‘Poor child,’ she said softly. ‘Poor little girl.’

‘She is strong.’

‘But so young. Such a tiny little pale fairy. I wish I could help her.’

‘Perhaps you can, dear heart.’

‘She has a mother...’

‘No true mother. You’ve met the harpy. And I am certain she and that sneaking eel Conroy were making the beast with two backs. Moreover, I am certain that the princess knew about it. She really was gravely mistreated, my darling. She deserves all sympathy...even as the House crashes down in fire,’ and he sighed, turning his drowsy eyes to the paper. Emily took his hand.

‘William is the best thing for her,’ she said. ‘I know it. She must have a gentle husband. The world offers no more loving creature than he.’

‘They make a beautiful couple.’

‘Don’t ask me to admire my own brother. See where that brought the ancients.’

‘Ah, but their literature, my love, their literature...’

They smiled, and sighed, reading down from the headline. The Times was astonished. The alarm of its journalist crept through the ink, tainting his careful phrases. ‘Her Majesty’s impartiality,’ read Palmerston aloud, ‘impartiality is severely jeopardised by this match. Although a personal attachment between Her Majesty and the Whigs’ popular leader was widely rumoured following their recent mutual heroism, this newspaper did not suspect that such an attachment might develop further. This morning’s announcement calls into unwelcome doubt our monarch’s fitness to continue as Head of State. Since the young Queen has of late enjoyed increasing affection from her people, and since she has no credible heir save His Grace of Cumberland - widely disliked - the questions to be asked today appear many and painful.’

‘May the Devil fly away with Cumberland!’ retorted Emily. ‘He’ll never take her place. Even if the people turn against her - and, my God, poor child, they may turn within hours! - we cannot seriously countenance that...that...that object, that malevolent beast, as King. We must not. Why, they said he took his own sister by force. They say a million terrible things of him.’

‘And all most credible. No, we must not countenance it. We must do all we can to prop her up. God knows what it will cost the Whigs, or the Tories if they’ll help us, but we cannot have him on the throne.’

‘She realises, does she not, the full danger of Cumberland inheriting?’

‘I’ll posit a guess that she realises better than any of us.’

‘He certainly cannot re-enter England. Even if we must all stand at Portsmouth with our rifles.’

‘You do remind me of Boudicca with a rifle in your hands.’

‘Oh...’ and she kissed his cheek. ‘You remind me of all sweet things. But you must save your blandishments for a more peaceful time. Now we must give our very best to the Crown.’

‘Indeed we must. I shall await word from William.’

‘Should I go to him?’

‘I make no doubt he would like your presence. But the Queen may need his full attention, especially if she’s with -’

Palmerston caught himself with ‘ch-’ on his lips. He cursed his brain when Emily’s eyes blew wide.

‘If she is with - with child? What? Do you suspect it?’

‘Er...I misspoke, my dear. I meant if she is weak. Feeling weak.’

‘Your nose twitches when you lie, Henry!’

He pressed his arm across it. ‘Weak! I meant weak, I swear it.’

‘I swear you are fortunate that I love you so. You scoundrel! You knew why this announcement was so sudden. I cannot believe William. How could he risk her thus? Where has my clever brother gone? This is the greatest stupidity he could commit! That poor girl. I am going to the Palace and I am going to box both his ears.’

‘My dear, do not blame him - a mistake - he has suffered a great deal -’

‘And will suffer more before long!’

Lunging for her hand, he missed, and landed with his face in the blanket as she swept out of the room. He groaned. From the hallway, she called back to him.

‘Stop growling and come with me! Either I or William will need you to cry on.’

 

****

 

The black sky was growing grey. Victoria wore the Garter Sash and Star. Skerrett fitted the chosen coronet to her head. The dresser watched the colour flare and fade in the Queen’s cheeks.

‘Would Your Majesty like anything else?’

‘I don’t think my head will bear anything else, Skerrett.’ Victoria gave a wavering laugh. ‘This is quite a heavy one. At least I cannot wear the Imperial crown.’

‘Cannot?’ echoed the dresser, unthinking, and quickly shaking her head. ‘I apologise, Ma’am. It isn’t my business.’

‘Skerrett, I don’t dislike you speaking clearly. In fact...in fact I think...at this moment...I would welcome it.’

The Queen quickly pressed her hand. The dresser felt her heart twist a little at the shiver in the soft white fingers. A moment of hesitating, and then she returned the pressure, warily.

‘Your Majesty is - I think - if Your Majesty truly wishes me to speak my mind - I think you are very brave, Ma’am.’

‘I don’t feel brave today, Skerrett.’

The dresser felt the Queen’s hand cling to hers, and could not let go. I am afraid - she thought - I am always afraid - and the most important woman in the world is afraid too, and her hand is so cold, and yet her back is perfectly straight.

The Garter Star shimmered against the sash’s soft blue. Over Victoria’s hair, the jewels of the coronet shone with a fierce pale light. The light flickered into her eyes, and it gleamed deeper there.

‘Indeed,’ she said, ‘I could not have worn the Imperial State Crown. It is for state occasions. This is not something the state wanted.’

‘Ma’am, if you please - I heard so many, many people I heard this morning, wishing you joy. You and the Prime Minister. They are very happy.’

Victoria smiled. A prick of tears made her press Skerrett’s hand again. The girl’s words made her grateful, and she had to hold on to that gratitude. She had to remember the thousands upon thousands to whom the detail of government, the two Houses, the clashes and ties of parties and regions, meant almost nothing. The unmeasurable masses reading only the picture below the headline. They did not care whether or not she remained impartial; they did not know the risk for Parliament, the danger thundering over the Whigs, echoing through every other party. They saw a great man at the helm of Britain, they saw the figurehead of a woman in a glittering crown, and the sight pleased them. And perhaps, if the very worst happened, if she must take off the crown, if Melbourne must cease to steer the country, perhaps then those masses would comfort her. Perhaps their love would endure.

The pins fixed the coronet tightly into her hair. Victoria stood up. On the bed, Dash raised his head and began to wag.

‘I don’t know when I shall need you again today, Skerrett. I may have to see many different people. Extremely important people.’

‘I shall stay here, Ma’am, if you like. In case you need to change quickly.’

‘God bless you. Thank you.’

The bravery in her fracturing smile made Skerrett’s throat tighten. When Victoria had scooped Dash up and left, the dresser sat down at the window and pressed her handkerchief to her eyes. She wished she could have spoken. But it was too naked a truth. It hurt too greatly, even to think it: Ma’am, even if you are humiliated before the whole world, even if the world’s anger tatters you to rags, I will still look at you and see a Queen.

 

****

 

‘William Lamb, I look at you and I see an utter fool!’

Lady Cowper had boiled up the palace staircase at nine o’clock. At eight she had rushed with Palmerston into her fastest carriage. She had raced across snow-slowed London, fumed along the Mall where crowds blocked her path, and, on her arrival at the gates, badly startled the footmen, who ran to find the Prime Minister. Melbourne had not told the Queen of his sister’s arrival. He had waited in a white and gold drawing room, because Emily loved white and gold decorations, and he turned from the fireplace at her furious voice.

‘Don’t you dare greet me! How can you possibly have endangered her thus? Some may suspect that we only share one parent, but, good Lord, I think we may share neither! Are you really undertaking this Godforsaken marriage only to save her from having your bastard?’

‘Yes,’ he said. Palmerston shook his head at her.

‘No, Emy, and you know it. Don’t be cruel, sweetheart.’

Her eyes dampened. William looked so completely exhausted. She did not want the sight of him to soften her wrath. Regardless, it was softening very fast, and she wanted to stroke his tousled head as their mother had, staunch the wound in his gaze as the Viscountess used to staunch his cut knees. She groped for her anger.

‘All I know is that my favourite brother and the Queen have been the ton’s tittle-tattle for a full year. This morning, I find out that the seat of British government may be about to crumble about our ears, because Eton was evidently not school enough to teach you how not to breed out of wedlock.’

For a brief instant he smiled, and it made her unwillingly glad. At least her hypocrisy could wipe a little of that drained grey pain from his face.

‘How is little Emily?’ he asked.

Lady Cowper did not mean to cry. But she had seen him lose so much. She had watched his wistfulness grow as her children grew and grew, while his own daughter withered at her too early birth, and his son, his poor stricken son, wrapped in William’s love that could not save him, died those few short years past. A tear ran down her nose. She reached for Palmerston’s hand, and he drew her to him.

‘Not-so-little Emily is busy with her increasing brood,’ he added, kissing his lady’s cheek. ‘Child Six is waddling now...the destructive terror.’

‘Six,’ and Melbourne shook his head. ‘My God. Only yesterday I was carrying her on my shoulders.’

His sister’s voice cracked. ‘She misses you, William! She has not seen enough of you of late.’

‘I’m sorry. I should have written.’

‘She’ll forgive you,’ said Palmerston. ‘You were doing good work here.’

Melbourne, pale, grew whiter. The Foreign Secretary hated to see the bruised shadows under his friend’s eyes - hated even more to see the guilt within them. He looked down at Emily. The tears were dribbling down her chin.

‘Oh, William,’ she gulped. ‘I did mean to be angry with you.’

The Prime Minister rubbed his own eyes. ‘I know,’ and his chuckle was less hollow for looking at her, the piquant little figure who had threaded the darkest of his years with colour, the elfin grace still intact in middle age. ‘Em, you could never be as angry as other people. White flowers with golden hearts can’t turn red.’

Her ugly sob made all three laugh. Holding tight to Palmerston’s fingers, she walked to her brother at the mantel and slipped her free arm around his waist. He bent his head to hers.

‘Hush, now,’ he murmured. ‘Have faith.’

‘I don’t have as much of that as you do.’

‘Have a small bit of faith. All will come right.’

‘You’re just trying to comfort me.’

‘Thwarted once more...’

Palmerston looked with endless fondness at the two fire-bright faces; their beautiful profiles so similar. The Queen would like them for a sketch, he imagined. And as if his thought had summoned her, soft-shod feet came fluttering along the corridor.

‘Lord M?’ called Victoria. ‘Lehzen said your sister was here...’

She swung through the doorway, and stopped, on her toes, gazing. Lady Cowper was leaning on her brother. The Foreign Secretary stood by them. They were gilded by the rustling light of the flames.

‘Your Majesty,’ said Emily. So young, she thought. So young to bear all this. The Queen came forwards.

‘Viscountess. Viscount. Viscount.’

Palmerston tried in vain not to grin. It would look mocking to a girl as sensitive as she. But she had spoken so seriously, and she looked so charming in white and blue. His lips overruled him.

Noticing, she moved a step back. There did not seem a place for her within their scene. Lady Cowper she knew a little; Lord Palmerston very little. The gap in age, barely seen with Lord M, struck her sharply as she looked at them. Their youth had crossed her grandfather’s reign and the Regency. Her uncle had passed from Regent to King in the first months of her life.

Her husband might not want her here at this moment. His sister might easily be wishing her away - the woman about to end his career, and perhaps Lord Palmerston’s too. The idea was a cold needle, digging in. She glanced between the politicians.

‘I am sorry. I shan’t disturb you.’

‘No -’ Melbourne reached out. His heart dropped at her expression. ‘Ma’am, don’t -’

‘Your Majesty, I am so eager to know you better.’

The warmth of Lady Cowper’s voice made her stop mid-turn. She looked back.

‘You mean at some other time?’

‘I mean now, if it pleases you. You see, I am desperate to speak with you. It was so very generous and sweet of you to grant permission for my marriage. I have wanted so very much to thank you face to face. I see perfectly why William adores you. I think I shall love you beyond all measure. In fact, I feel as though I love you already. I hope you will forgive me the correct protocols, my dear, because I so want to embrace you. May I, please?’

Victoria did not see the men fighting for control of their faces. She had to swallow, and think, and wonder if she had heard aright. Save for Lord M, no other person had ever spoken to her with such rushing affection. Not Lehzen, not dear King William or Queen Adelaide, certainly not the Duchess. Liebchen, from the Duchess, always Liebchen, and yet the words had never seemed a fraction as true as those spilling from the tear-damp lips of this half stranger.

‘Yes,’ Victoria said. ‘You may.’

The feeling that had first come on the day of the attack...it had come again, the swelling strength of it, a joy like the birth of a star. She had found her family; she had been found. Now Lady Cowper was darting across the room and gathering her into her warm arms, warm voice, pressing a kiss to her forehead. Suddenly, on this day of fear, she was safe, she was understood. She was wanted.

Melbourne stood and gazed, willing the image to etch itself in. Palmerston let his grin consume him.

‘Do you see what I see?’ he muttered.

‘I believe I shall shortly see St. Peter. I could not possibly be anywhere else.’

‘Delay your ingress until you’ve met your putative child.’

The Prime Minister appreciated the hand on his shoulder. He had wiped his eyes, but more tears could easily follow, overflowing from his memory. Emily had walked with him through the black abyss of Augustus’ last days. Long before, she had laid his tiny dying daughter in his hands; she had even found adornments for a baby too small to breathe - a feather, a downy blanket; a doll meant for another doll to hold. Her love had sealed up his torn mind. She knew all its scars. Only she and Victoria - only they in the entire span of the world, in the infinity of whatever world lay beyond - could touch those scars without breaking them open. They two only, here together, his sister holding his wife in her arms.

From the corridor, the spaniel came pottering in. He bounced up beside the two women, his tail a swishing flag.

‘Oh,’ said Emily, ‘look at this beautiful boy! Is this the Dash of whom I hear so much?’

The Queen glanced at Melbourne. He kissed his fingers, breathed out - she closed her fingers on the kiss, held it to her cheek.

‘Yes,’ she smiled, ‘this is Dash.’

Lady Cowper picked him up and cradled him. His tail thudded faster and faster. His tongue lolled to its full length. The men came over to stroke him. Palmerston laughed, tickling the spots that made one feathery leg kick in midair. As the dog wagged and licked, Victoria turned to Melbourne.

‘Let us end the day here,’ she whispered. ‘I think it’s evening already, isn’t it, Lord M?’

‘Indeed. It is already ten past nine. Certainly Dash’s bedtime. That light outside is the moon.’

Above the mantel and the dwindling fire, the clock’s pendulum kept up its swing. Yet it seemed to swing slower, tick slower, as they stood, two and two, Emily and Palmerston holding Dash, Melbourne and Victoria holding each other.


	27. Words

At eleven o’clock, snow lightly flurrying, Wellington and Peel stood within the doorway of Parliament. The scrum of journalists outside were clamouring to be fed. Young men with notebooks, pencils sharpened to dagger points, had been shot like bullets from their offices to flock here, to wait in the dark, in the dawn, through hours past dawn, ravening for further headlines. Each well-known politician who arrived had been surrounded and tailed to the doors, deafened by the shouts that still continued.

‘Sir! Sir! Your Grace! My Lord! What can you tell us about the Queen’s decision? Will the Prime Minister resign today? Will we have a general election? Will the Tories form a minority government? Or will Viscount Palmerston become premier? The public deserve to know!’

‘Damn their eyes,’ coughed the Duke. ‘Most of the public don’t care a button for our joustings. The rest don’t deserve to know anything.’

Peel’s nose was as red as his own. Muffled up in their scarves, they still felt the ice. The men outside had thinner coats.

‘Your Grace...I think the Prime Minister would let them in.’

‘Hmph. Melbourne, damn his eyes doubly, is not here. Too busy choosing a cradle, I imagine. He can hang that new Garter Star over it for a plaything.’

‘I’ll bet my fortune that you hung your Star over your boys’ cradles.’

The Duke blew his nose with a hoot. Spots of richer pink appeared on his harsh cheekbones. He tugged his scarf up higher around his face.

The crowd of journalists was growing steadily. A score of foreigners arrived in one tired group. Peel heard men speaking French and Dutch. ‘Good God!’ - he elbowed Wellington - ‘oh, Good God, your Grace, look at this. It’s the Medway all over again.’

‘Hmph...can those lads really have crossed the Channel this morning?’

‘They look as though they’ve crossed the Atlantic in canoes.’

Peel sounded snappish, felt snappish, had a great desire really to snap his jaws at the awful crowd. All the stumbling-blocks Parliament faced in this new age...corn regulation, Ireland’s aggravations, opium, the end of rotten boroughs, the Chartists. And now the Queen and her betrothed had pulled this trouble down on their beleaguered heads. But her kindness to his wife...her words on his own drawings that had so delighted him. Melbourne’s gentle courtesy, a hand always ready to shake Peel’s. The public joy at their courage. Oh, this was misery. He could not scowl any longer. It was making his face ache.

‘This marriage,’ he grunted. ‘Give me your opinion, please. Your full opinion, no stupid sugar. Will it ruin us all?’

‘Can’t say. Don’t know. If it does, the Whigs will fall first. We might save ourselves, calling them corrupt. Corrupting the Crown, destroying the girl’s impartiality. Which God knows Lord Too Handsome has done. And he wouldn’t fight the accusation. But Palmerston would strike us with everything he could find. John Russell too, I’d expect. They could call us opportunists. Say we were using the situation to make ourselves a one-party Parliament. And they’d be damned right.’

‘I don’t want to attack Melbourne.’

A dry smile curled the Duke’s lips. He looked slantways at Peel.

‘Nor do the public,’ he replied. ‘Even if this loses him popularity, every voting man without Chartist sympathies has toasted the Queen and her cavalier. Half the families in the country have kept newspapers covering the attack. All we’d have to do is criticise him too loudly, and back their eyes would go to those very papers, and we’d be villains.’

‘It’s a tightrope. I don’t like heights.’

The Duke’s laugh boomed so loudly that the reporters pushed forwards.

‘Is there about to be a statement? Who was that laughing? Is there mirth in the Houses at this news? Why? Is the mood sanguine? Why? Is that Lord Melbourne?’

The Duke put his head around the door. ‘Don’t call me names, you half-grown whelps,’ he shouted. Laughter rolled over the crowd, even while the policemen shouldered them back.

‘That’s the Iron Duke!’ hissed one boy to another. ‘His nose is really as big as in the paintings!’

‘Your Grace!’ shouted dozens of accents, scores of chapped hands in the air. ‘Tell us what has happened in Parliament. Will there be debate today? Where is the Prime Minister?’

Peel’s policemen linked arms and shoved them away from the door. Wellington withdrew his head. He and Peel eyed each other.

‘Sir Robert, I’ll confess to liking you better these days. Even if these days are to be our last in public life.’

‘Mutual, Your Grace.’

‘Let us go and have a drink. I hope your toy soldiers can keep order.’

****

At noon, Melbourne stepped out of his carriage and into the throng of journalists. He thought they might tug him apart. Numberless hands dragged at his sleeves. His own name dinned and dinned into his ears. A new sorrow came to him, looking at the faces hungry for his voice. He was too tired to choose words that would fill up their notebooks.

‘Gentlemen, come inside with me. Best behaviour, if you please.’

Those who had not heard him were told by their neighbours. Men angered by the long cold fruitless hours shuffled into line around the Prime Minister. Running noses were wiped; snow-whitened hats shaken clean. At least Parliament would be warmer, even if nobody would talk to them. They could not understand politicians, talking all the time when the papers weren’t interested, and shutting up like tombs when they were.

Many of the journalists had not been inside Parliament before. The eldest of them listened with nostalgic pleasure to the reactions of their juniors. Some whistled or clapped, to hear the atrium’s deep echo. The foreigners filled page after page with shorthand. Fingers made clumsy with the cold thawed. Gloves returned to pockets.

Melbourne climbed a few steps up the staircase; turned to face the visitors. Whether this was a gamble, or a practical gesture, or simple goodwill - he did not know which it was - and there was scant reason to give it any name. He had forced the government onto uncharted land. No map could guide any of them, Whig or Tory or Repeal. Kindness to journalists might as well be the beginning.

‘There’s no purpose in your remaining outside. Your newspapers will also gain more accurate reports from men who are not half frozen. A debate may take place this afternoon. You are more than welcome to cover it. Regarding this morning’s reports, they are correct. If you wish for further comment on them, I would ask you to approach me rather than anyone else. Harass no-one, please.’

The shock of the crowd was a silent thunder. Then a ferocious scratch of pencils, a few whoops, smiles appearing everywhere. Politicians, startled by the crowd, gathered closer. Peel stood with his hands on his hips - called a policeman to him, and whispered, gesturing with a blunt finger. He was close enough for the Viscount to read the whisper: ‘I want the Prime Minister obeyed.’

Behind them, Palmerston strutted by, copying Peel’s hands on hips, and bobbing his head back and forth like a chicken’s. The Lords Russell and Cottenham made huge eyes to their leader. Cottenham waggled the ends of his Chancellor wig. A very young reporter was goggling at Wellington, the legend made flesh - the Duke walked to the boy, straightened his optimistic cravat, and ruffled his hair. Suddenly the tension of the atrium had a festival smell. On a frightening day, fear was twisting into a shape more bearable.

The pack of journalists gradually broke. A few left, their stories already strong, to be worked up at the office. Dozens mingled with the politicians. Melbourne watched Peel’s men shadowing them - cautioning the handful who threatened to annoy his colleagues. The Prime Minister walked up the staircase, and a hundred feet ran after him.

‘My Lord, we would like more comment, please, if you have time.’

‘I’ll comment on your strikingly good manners, young man.’

The lad bowed, gave a self-conscious laugh. More dewy teenagers flanked Melbourne, staring with eyes of painful innocence, shorthand dashing across their notebooks, and he wondered how their earnest work so easily became the enemy of his. But the enemies already made were following behind - those whose success in journalism was long since built, and who had come for stories to match the politics of their respective editors, or to amuse a spiteful readership, or to gorge the imaginations of their illustrators. The Viscount raised his voice for all to hear.

‘I cannot give you certainties when I know few myself. The only matter sure not to change is that I and Her Majesty will shortly be married. She wishes the ceremony to take place on Christmas Day.’

It would not be too close to Emily’s wedding, on the sixteenth; it would not be such a delay that the pregnancy, if a pregnancy there was, would seem unexplainably short. Victoria had drawn a map of late December and marked each day in order of preference. ‘The twenty-fifth,’ she had said, ‘on the twenty-fifth, working people will be able to come to the cathedral, if they wish.’

‘It is a happy day.’

‘Then perhaps it will make Parliament less unhappy...’

‘Prime Minister - Prime Minister - what colour of dress will Her Majesty wear?’

‘I do not know. She is the Queen. It will be her choice.’

The boys scribbled ‘blue?’ and ‘pink?’ and ‘gold and silver like HRH Charlotte?’. Their seniors wrote down verbatim what they had heard; thickly underlined it.

‘Now, gentlemen, I must go to the debate. It will likely centre on corn regulation, so you may not find it too interesting. However, you’re welcome to stay if you like, on the strict proviso that you follow the instructions of the policemen.’

Melbourne went on towards the House. Many of the juniors seized the chance to see its interior. As they followed him, the veterans separated off. They began to draft their headlines.

A ROYAL WIFE TO RULE HER SPOUSE

‘HER CHOICE’, SAYS LORD MELBOURNE

‘HER CHOICE’ - OUR QUEEN HAS PLEASED HERSELF

PRIME MINISTER EMPHASISES QUEEN’S FREEDOM

HER MAJESTY EXERTS INDEPENDENCE - ALREADY A RIFT?

VISCOUNT MELBOURNE WILL NOT UNDULY INFLUENCE QUEEN

MELBOURNE DOES NOT KNOW QUEEN’S FAVOURITE COLOUR

****

When night had draped in through another fall of snow, and the clock wheezed ten o’clock, the Queen could finally stand still, alone with Dash in the quiet library. She had worn five different gowns. She had accepted flower-laden congratulations from Emma and Harriet. She had accepted more from Wellington, Peel, Russell, and the frail Earl Grey, making a rare excursion in his retirement, arriving at nine after his long drive from Northumberland, his voice lasting only a few minutes.

‘I pray you will accept a fossil’s fond blessings,’ he had mouthed, ‘and this token from my own dogs,’ taking a ribbon from his pocket to tie shakily round Dash’s neck. ‘Your Majesty has shown great friendship to the Whigs. As, indeed, did your dear cousin. For all that myself and your husband-to-be have our divergences of opinion, I believe him to be a good - even a great man. I hope most sincerely that every happiness will come to you.’ And, lastly, he winked. ‘Although, Ma’am, if it was an English peer you were wanting, I could have offered several of my very own sons. None, I must say, quite as agreeable as my good self...’

Grey had raised her mood after her previous meeting: a sad brief interview with the Duchess which had ended in both of them shouting. Lehzen had found a sadness of her own, because, although Victoria stormed from her mother’s rooms, she had no tears for her governess to dry. She spent two minutes kicking a doorframe, and then went to the Earl in composure, barely flushed.

Finally sitting down, she held out her hands to Dash. He scrambled up her skirts and set his paws on her shoulders, panting widely. She scratched around his ears.

‘What should I do without you?’

Flat-eared, he licked the air. His new ribbon was embroidered in shades of red, all one gorgeous sheen. It set off his eyes. They seemed always so full of sympathy. If he could speak, surely he would have such wise things to say.

‘Would you congratulate me too, Dashie? I think you would. You love Lord M enormously.’

He wagged harder at the name. At the voice from the doorway, he barked, and before Melbourne could finish saying ‘No higher compliment’ the spaniel was jumping at his knees. The Prime Minister hoisted him to his shoulder. Dash balanced there, tail gaily thwacking, as he was carried to the fireplace.

‘There you are.’ Melbourne set him in the softest chair. ‘His leg seems to have no damage at all.’

‘No, not the least little bit. And all because you helped me so. Because you took me to find that clever doctor. That very, very clever doctor.’

Their smiles met across the fire’s long glow. The Queen limped towards him. Her feet were leaden with tiredness. The Viscount felt he might fall at the next step - he stepped to her - supported her over to the fireplace. She drew him down onto the rug, as once before. Once in fear and firelight.

‘Do you remember, Lord M?’

‘Yes. Every moment. Every beat of your heart.’

He lay down beside the flames. She turned, and lay the other way, her cheek beside his on the rug, their feet settling below opposite ends of the mantel. He turned his head to hers.

‘I hear from Grey that you delighted him.’

‘He said kind things about you.’

‘Each novelty in due season...’

Their hands linked between their faces. They held tight.

‘Ma’am, this is only the start. A very, very gentle start.’

‘I know. I wish...I know.’

She watched his eyelids droop. He opened them one more time, to make her face the last sight of his long day.

‘Bright star,’ he murmured, ‘I would awake for ever in a sweet unrest...’

‘...Still, still to hear your tender-taken breath.’

She kissed his hand. Her name flickered on his lips - flickered his eyes closed. She clung to waking until his breathing evened, and she breathed between his breaths, weaving together, deep into the fire's glow, rocking them warm into the night.


	28. Colour

‘Ma’am, have you seen this headline?’

Melbourne was sitting at his library desk. Victoria lay across the window seat, writing to her half-siblings. At the uncertainty in his tone, she set down the letters and wriggled to the floor.

‘Which headline, Lord M? There are so many today.’

‘This one.’

He passed the paper over, without quite looking at her. She examined its front page. Only the pained creases of his brow could stop her from laughing.

‘I’m appalled, Lord M,’ and he saw her fighting back a smile.

‘Ma’am, I truly do not know it. They are right.’

‘And? Are we to call off the wedding?’

She rolled up the newspaper, and handed it to Dash. The spaniel busied himself chewing it to soggy shreds, and the Queen leaned over the back of the Prime Minister’s seat. Her breathy kiss tickled his neck. His hand found her hair, her curls mingling with his own. There was no mirror to show them. His mind painted them more richly than a mirror could: the lustrous mahogany falling against the brown so much darker, against the faint threads of silver.

She circled his neck with her arms. He rubbed her wrist.

‘Lord M, would you like to learn what my favourite colour is?’

‘I ought already to have known.’

‘You know everything else.’

He looked round, into her unwavering gaze. Blue, he thought, blue as a summer sky - that will always remain my favourite colour. It was not always; it always will be.

She raised a careful hand to his eyes. They crinkled as she lightly touched their lashes. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Here is my favourite colour, Lord M.’

‘Black?’

‘Oh, you are teasing me. You know what I mean. I could hardly touch them! I would hurt you...’

He kissed her fingertips. ‘Nothing you could do would hurt me.’

‘That isn’t the least bit true. I have hurt you many times. I hurt you when I was hurt.’

‘That simply makes you human, Ma’am.’

‘But I will do better. I must.’

‘You have changed from then. You have changed a great deal...not that I ever thought you less than sweetness itself.’

‘I’m glad that I have changed. I don’t understand how you loved me before.’

He stood swiftly, turning, kneeing the chair aside as he drew her to him. She gasped a little at how tight he held her - how gently his lips touched her cheek.

‘I loved you entirely, Ma’am. You did not have to earn that. You might have created a thousand more crises with your Whig ladies - you might have shouted a thousand times louder - smashed a million more ornaments - and I would still have loved you. I saw you, and I heard you speak, and I wanted to help you, because you were the bravest woman I had ever met, bearing the greatest burden. After an hour, I wanted to hold your hand. After a day, I wanted to sit and talk with you forever.’

‘After two days?’

‘To touch your waist. Kiss your throat.’

‘Three?’

‘To come to your bed.’

The words brought heat curling through her. She rose to tiptoes, gripping his lapels above his quickening breath. He gathered a handful of her hair to kiss, to hide his face in its scent, to believe that after those years of hopeless wishing she was in his arms and pulling him closer. She leaned her head against his. He smelled of books and flowers. Her hand curved so easily round the back of his neck. What of her did not fit with him? All her resented smallness, all her anger, and yet he, in his height and his beauty and his endless understanding...he was shaped for her hands and for her heart.

‘The House doesn’t meet today, Lord M. What shall we do this evening?’

‘Perhaps ride out, Ma’am. Your next official event is next week, but I wondered...’

He trailed off, stroking her knuckles. She turned her lips to his jaw.

‘If you wondered whether a casual outing might be better, then I have wondered the same thing. We shall have to take a great many outriders, but perhaps - perhaps - if we seem to behave naturally - the people may be more likely to do the same.’

‘I believe that’s absolutely right.’

‘So this is a marriage of true minds, isn’t it?’

She felt his smile in all her body. It made her bend closer still, her chest to his, her hands slipping under the hem of his shirt.

‘I was wondering another thing,’ she added. ‘The night before we are married, I want you to stay with me. Here.’

Melbourne drew a breath to make him think. A breath to contain the agreement that was swelling like a bubble, faster than good sense.

‘It would be more traditional for me to travel from Brocket.’

‘I do not want tradition. I want you here with me.’

‘People will wonder.’

‘They never stop wondering. Don’t you think, just this once, they might attend to their own concerns? Don’t you think they might go about their business and let us go about ours?’

‘A question surely asked, Ma’am, by every monarch since monarchy began.’

She unfolded his cravat, tracing the hollows of his collarbone. He found her waist and lifted her; set her on the piano’s closed lid.

‘You know how much extra protection you will need between now and the wedding...and afterward.’

He hated to see her eyes cloud. He loved the straightening of her back - the pout of focus that he had to kiss. She spoke against his mouth.

‘People will soon be threatening us. I want to see the written threats.’

He tried not to wince. In this long struggle, she was growing stronger and stronger - strength to match any Queen of history, he knew it, knew it in his bones - but the selfish worry in his head said no, they will frighten her. He cupped her chin.

‘You are sure.’

She heard no question in it. She nodded into his hand; kissed the joint of his thumb. Her hands slipped to his back, ran up and down, smoothing and rumpling.

‘I ought to know, Lord M. Two guards laid down their lives for me - when - when the madman made his attempt. I must know what they are facing.’

One moment more, he longed to refuse. But his pride in her spoke louder than his fear. He nodded.

She hooked her feet around him. He drew her skirt up over her knees and she pushed his shirt up, flattened her hand to his chest; sighed to feel his ribs sharper. Her fingertips stroking to his wrist, she reassured herself in his steady warm pulse, and in the unchanged clearness of his eyes. He wound his fingers through her loosening hair. Surely it would always seem a miracle, her kiss on his skin, feeling her body formed to his. She crossed her arms behind his neck.

‘Does it matter now if we are no longer careful?’

‘Yes. Yes. It does matter. Do not tempt me, Ma’am. Please do not.’

‘We shall be married in two and a half weeks. Double married.’

‘We might be a hundred times married, and it would still damage you for the people to wonder about an early birth, following a hasty ceremony. If you are not with child yet, I can at least spare you that embarrassment.’

‘I would care more for your embarrassment.’

‘I know you would. But I can no longer be embarrassed very badly.’

‘I am glad I never met her.’

‘So am I. But I am sorry that you never met Augustus.’

‘I am very sorry for that,’ and she touched her lips to the shadows under his eyes. She wished she could kiss the shadows within them.

At the grief in her touch, he lowered his head. She held him as if they both had lost Augustus - as if his son had been not Caro’s, but hers instead - his son who, living, would now have been older than she. His daughter would have been close to the same age. In the warmth of his gratitude, guilt mingled darkly.

She kissed his brow. Gently she ran her lips along its lines.

‘I want you to tell me about him. That is, if you wish to - if it would make you a little happier - I would like you to tell me a great deal about him. And the little baby girl you lost.’

‘Emily told you?’

‘Only that she was beautiful.’

He looked up at the Queen. She shone with sympathy; with a brightening anger.

‘I cannot...no, I cannot say ‘thy will be done’. God should have spared you one of them. That would have been fair.’

He could not swallow. ‘Ma’am, I have thought the same for a long time. However, I have the luxury of not being the Head of our Church.’

‘Nonetheless, He will forgive me, I trust.’

‘Since yours is the divine anointing, if you cannot be forgiven, there is scant hope for the rest of us.’

‘Queen Anne was anointed just as I am. She lost every single child. She must have wondered why. She must have been very angry.’

Melbourne caught her hands in his. Her anger, spoken, had been his, unspoken even to Emily, black and twisted, too ugly for his mind to encompass. But of course Victoria would say what he had feared even to shape into words. Gripping his hands, raising them to her lips and her warm breath, she shamed his cowardice. She, his butterfly with wings of steel.

‘I love you,’ he said, and she spoke at the same time, into his palm - ‘I love you so, Lord M.’

‘We shall survive this, Ma’am. No matter its conclusion.’

‘I mean for it to have a good conclusion. Not for Cumberland to be King...not for the Whigs to be destroyed.’

‘I hope for so excellent an outcome.’

‘We can make it true. I think we must. I think there is no other way.’

She was restless against him, moving and grasping. He slid his hands to her thighs. Her skin burned him. He had known that she could lead him to fire, and he would walk with her into the flames. But the flames were here. She was the fire itself.

‘Dash is sleeping,’ she whispered. ‘We must still be quiet.’

‘Indeed. His innocence should be preserved.’

In hushed laughter, her thumb across his lips, he fitted her closer. Her skirt spread across the piano’s lid. She meant to look at him as they began, meant to feel his breath change and watch the beautiful colour in his face, but with her first familiar gasp came a shock like the fall of lightning, a storm of feeling too great for quiet. She muffled her mouth in his neck as he pressed his eyes closed.

‘Ma’am, you told me once...’

She could not speak. She would not trust herself even to turn her head. Her cry would fill the palace. It would fill the city. Surely every living soul of land and sea would hear. She found his arm and gripped it, breathing in time with his body.

‘You told me you wished you could speak as I do.’

He felt her lips open on his skin. She pressed her tongue to the rush of his pulse. At his choked sound, she had to hold him tighter. Surely they would fuse together.

‘Ma’am, I do not have words for this. For you.’

‘I do not have words at all.’

He laughed into her hair. Even with her skin aflame and her heart thundering, she was safe. She was safe as she had never been. When the wave of heavy heat climbed so high she could no longer breathe, his breath was hers, his breath stuttering against her lips, catching sharply. The heat bloomed, and he clung to her. The rush in her ears was too loud to hear his whisper, but his lips had moved against her face, and she felt their shaping of her name.


	29. Wave

They drove out in a closed carriage, through the thickening snow and the settling in of dusk. The crowds were still dense. A shout went up as the gates opened, and Peel’s policemen struggled against the press of bodies. The outriders closed ranks.

‘The Queen! The Queen!’

‘Is the Prime Minister there?’

Melbourne waited for Victoria to wave. She passed her white gloves across the window pane, where the people could see through the trotting riders. He leaned to the other window; tipped his hat to the blurred throng of faces.

‘Lord M, they don’t sound so very unfriendly, do they?’

The carriage swerved. The Queen gasped, catching herself on the opposite seat. Over her head, Melbourne saw the grey shape of a Peeler snatching something from a young man’s hands - the man being shoved by the people around him, a burly woman knocking off his hat. One other youth was shielding him, gesticulating to the woman. The policemen pushed them all back. Several fell down in the slush.

The Viscount stood up, looked through the driver’s tiny window. The team were twitching with fright. The coachman was struggling to keep them slow.

‘Ma’am, that was a rock, I think.’

‘Did he hurt the horses?’

‘I can’t tell. I think not.’

He sat down. She kept one hand at the glass - went on waving. The shouts came mistily through the walls, as from a dream.

‘God bless Your Majesty! God bless your lordship!’

‘Do what you will, Ma’am!’

Victoria chewed her lip. Through the shadow the Viscount could see her eyes glistening. On the seat between them, their fingers squeezed together.

‘You have all our hearts, Ma’am!’

‘Do as you wish, Your Majesty!’

‘Do as we wish - abdicate! Abdicate now!’

'Resign, Melbourne!'

A boom of disagreement drowned out the shouts of ‘Abdicate!’. More scuffles began. The policemen were skidding where the snow had packed hard. Their line wobbled - one of them had fallen, and people were pushing through the gap. Two Peelers hit out with their truncheons; an outrider with his whip. The Queen sobbed.

‘Ma’am, we should drive faster.’

‘No, no, we have to see...we have to know...’

Her hand was still at the window, swaying to and fro in its glowing white glove. People were still waving back. There were smiles on rough motherly faces, smiles on the faces of urchins whose heads came up to the policemen’s waists. Men and women in expensive coats kissed their hands and called out ‘Bless you’ and ‘You have our faith!’ and the figures who did not smile, who shook their fists, were being pushed back. They ran at the rear of the crowd, following the carriage. Melbourne leaned forwards to watch them - to watch for a gun. And then another rock thunked against his side of the carriage, and another struck the window in front of his face, and the glass cracked across like ice, and Victoria’s arms closed round him and pulled him back out of view. She knocked on the uncracked window.

‘Turn slowly,’ she called to the driver. ‘Go back to the palace.’

‘We should continue down the Mall, find another route...’

‘No, no - it would be safer, I know it would - but I know we must not run away. Not from the ones who cheer - not from the ones who throw stones.’

She turned his face to her and kissed him, the salt of tears on her lips, her fingers dragging through his hair.

‘Trust me,’ she whispered, ‘trust me, please.’

‘I would trust you with my soul if you did not already have it.’

‘Then wave, Lord M. Hold my hand and keep your head back, and wave.’


	30. Mama

‘Drina, where in Christendom are you going?’

‘I am going out, Mama.’

‘To where? This is not the time to be going out day after day, Liebchen. Especially at the same hour each evening. It is not at all safe. Why, your carriage has been stoned four times!’

‘I am going out.’

‘You must reconsider! The attempt on your life is still most recent...'

‘I have not forgotten.’

Victoria motioned for her coat. Skerrett buttoned her into it.

‘Leave us, girl,’ said the Duchess.

‘No, Skerrett, do not leave.’

The dresser felt her stomach knot. Instantly the Queen’s hand emerged from one voluminous sleeve; reached out in reassurance, patted her arm. In the tiny white fingers, Skerrett felt a shiver. Yet the Queen was comforting her.

‘I shall drive out, Mama. The decision is not yours. Nor is it appropriate for you to command my servants.’

‘Drina! You have grown very impertinent! It is my right to -’

‘It is not your right.’

Skerrett feared the Duchess might pop, and whizz away like a firework. The woman was turning a terrible colour.

‘Alexandrina, I am your mother!’

Victoria gripped her dresser’s thin black sleeve. Now she had to ground herself. No longer, she thought, I am no longer the friendless little ghost of Kensington. I am strong. I speak with my own voice. No-one can make me small. No-one can deceive me with words that should have meant love.

‘You were no true mother.’

The red of the German’s face was nothing Skerrett had ever seen. The girl found herself looking for a weapon. A pin would do, a hat pin, a hair pin, the poker maybe, something to grab and hold between the Queen and the hideous look in the Duchess’ eyes.

‘My own Drina, how can you say such a wicked thing to me?’

‘Because it is true. You caused me such hurt that I shall never be entirely free from it.’

A shock cold as snow passed over the Duchess. With a fear colder yet, her heart recoiled from it, from all the deep-locked shames that murmured within it. She gave a dismissing scoff.

‘Oh, what a nonsense of a drama, Drina! You have no notion how excellent a mother I have been to you. You ought to feel gratitude.’

The Queen felt a sudden strange flicker of pity. She felt for an instant as though she were at Bedlam, looking in through the bars at some poor soul raving in her shackles. Then the pity gave way before a surge of pain. This would never alter. There was no use in hoping any longer. All other thoughts were silenced by the great bitter knell of sorrow, ringing up into anguish, tolling out a final defeat.

‘Very soon,’ she said, ‘I shall be married. I shall live here with my husband.’

‘Live here, indeed! You will be forced to abdicate and then you will live in exile! If, indeed, this hideous union is really to take place. I shall not cease trying to talk sense into you!’

‘I shall not hear.'

‘Impertinent again! How you have changed since Kensington. You were a good little thing once. A nice little child.’

‘I am no longer a child. I have not been for many years.’

‘Ah, there you delude yourself. You behave as a petulant baby. This ridiculous engagement is the behaviour of one spoilt and selfish. If only Sir John were here - I believe his wisdom may be the only thing that could -’

‘He showed no more wisdom in his treatment of me than you did in yours. And if he ever returns to this house I shall banish him entirely from England.’

‘You - you - how could you - why, I cannot begin to -’

She choked on her astonishment. Their argument the previous day, shouting so loud that the wretched spaniel had run off to hide, had frightened her less than this. Things that mere minutes ago had been solid - things she had taken perfectly for granted - were teetering to fall.

‘Listen to yourself, Drina! You sound positively like a despot of old. Please, please, my Liebchen, hear your mother. Your temper has always troubled me. It is truly unsuited to your station...still more to your age! You must try much harder to control yourself.’

In an aching certainty, Victoria gazed at the Duchess. This, she told herself, this could truly have sent me mad. This woman, speaking as a despot and calling me a despot, this woman damning my childishness and stripping me down to childhood, could have built me a Bedlam within my own mind.

‘I am sorry that my temper distresses you. It will not trouble you much longer.’

‘Much longer...what can you possibly mean?’

‘After my marriage, it will no longer be appropriate for you to reside here.’

The Duchess stared and stared at her child’s face. Had so much of the Duke always shown in her features? Had the inflection of her voice always echoed his? Or was it Lehzen in the tense words? Oh, always something of Lehzen, the thief of Drina’s affection, the betrayer of Conroy’s superb System. Anger was rising, hideous anger, and it would be expressed. The girl deserved nothing kinder.

‘As you ought to know very well, there is nothing in protocol to prohibit my remaining here for as long -’

‘I am Queen and I will decide who lives in my home. In the New Year, your household will be removed to Kensington.’

‘Why, I...I cannot believe...the New Year, indeed!’

‘I feel that twenty days are long enough for your furniture to be moved.’

‘Ah, you feel so, do you?’ and the Duchess hurled herself into the refuge of her rage. ‘Let me tell you, the New Year may be damned! My things might be removed later, but I shall leave today. I shall not spend one more night under this roof.’

‘That will be inconvenient for you. I would not ask it. And it is so close to...’

‘To the holy season? Why, you think of that too late! I do not at all wish to spend the celebrations here. I would rather pass it among those who treat me with decency. I shall not wish to see you at Christmas.’

Skerrett had never been more afraid. The grip on her sleeve was like the hand of someone drowning. The beautiful porcelain skin that the dresser had always admired - it was growing too pale. The cornflower eyes looked so dull. It took such an effort for the Queen to speak.

‘My wedding is on Christmas Day.’

The German rolled her eyes. ‘And what? Can you possibly be believing that I would attend?’

‘I believe that, if you indeed loved me, your attendance would never have been in doubt.’

The Duchess seemed to see a wall bricking up. Just one more little chink was left. If she reached out for that last jagged little gap...if she reached for its last spot of light...but it was not for her to reach out. She had not built that wall. The chink was closing, the light fading, and she saw the closing in her daughter’s open eyes.

‘You will not attend, I presume.’

‘You presume quite correctly,’ and something hot and ugly was sticking in her throat, making her eyes sting. ‘Such a wedding is nothing to me. It is beneath nothing.’

Victoria had numbed. The pain was growing strong as nausea. Outside the windows, a vague sun shone. Behind her eyes, the day had swung to starless night. So few hours ago, she had been blissful in her husband’s arms. As the clock ticked to half past two, she thought she might faint away.

Her stomach rolled. She swallowed down a sour taste.

‘To leave today is indeed your right, Mam-’

The Duchess flinched. Victoria caught herself. The grief wrenched her. How much she might have meant in that endearment. How grateful she might have been in another world, where her mother had heard her, cherished her, honoured her. In this world, in this life, no-one was her Mama, and she was no-one’s daughter.

‘Your Highness, I am ready to give you all assistance towards an easy and comfortable journey.’

‘So you are very eager to be rid of me! I see. You have never thought of my feelings, Drina - you have never paid them the slightest duty - but I will tell you now that I am also quite in readiness. You wish me to leave, and I wish to be rid of so unloving and unfeeling a child!’

The Duchess shoved through the doorway. The room filled with the crackle of wide skirts, snapping of shoes on wood. The door slammed. Quiet came softly back.

‘Skerrett,’ said Victoria. ‘I am going to be sick,’ and she crumpled down onto her knees.

The dresser snatched up a bowl of silk flowers, threw them out, knelt, tucked the bowl into the Queen’s shaking hands. They held it there together. If the girl limply vomiting before her had been anyone else, Skerrett could have stroked her hair and said meaningless good things, told her it wasn’t so bad, could have been a forkful of bad fish, spoonful of bad milk, something tiny, nothing at all, nothing to fear.

‘Ma’am,’ she said. ‘What do you need me to do?’

Victoria ran the back of her hand across her eyes. The Prime Minister had gone to Hertfordshire that morning. He had gone to hold his Cabinet meeting there, because wherever else he went a swarm of journalists went with him. Robert Peel had sent two hundred policemen to assist the Brocket staff in keeping the swarm outside the estate. Lord M had kissed her goodbye in a twinkle of snow, and she had only clung to him a moment.

She would have clung to him longer if she had worn this coat, and felt its slight tightening around her chest. She would have clung for much longer if she had wondered about the patches of dizziness through the previous day...through the day before. If she had found herself in this posture before he left - faint and heaving - she would have asked him to stay, and let Palmerston chair the meeting. Palmerston.

‘Emily,’ she gulped. ‘Skerrett, you can write a message, please, to Lady Cowper. Send it with a footman. Ask her to come as soon as she can.’


	31. Mother

As the Viscountess’ carriage sped up the Mall, the Queen was not at any window. She had stumbled towards the white and gold drawing room, where the fire played delicate shadows on the walls, and the air held a pink warmth. Dash had attached himself to her skirts. He jumped into her lap before she had sat all the way down. She huddled over him; kissed his nose. His anxious eyes gazed up.

Through her meeting with the Duchess, he had been barking in the library, its door closed by a well-meaning footman who had not noticed the furry sleeper in an armchair. The moment his barks were heard and the door was opened he had come bowling up through the palace, just as the German made her angry way out of the Queen’s apartments, and he had met her with his little teeth glinting and his lips crinkled back. He had chased her along six whole corridors and torn a great ragged stripe from her dress. She had barely reached her own rooms in time to keep his teeth from her ankles. When she slammed the door another footman had seen him leap up against it, snarling, clawing off scrolls of paint. But when Victoria called to him he had heard, and run to her wobbly arms.

She clung to him on the fat brocade sofa, under the chandelier with its halo of kind light. Before he came to comfort her, she had feared her heart might hammer out through her chest and flee away. It had felt like the wings of some desperate bird. He had brought it back to quiet.

Skerrett waited at the palace doors. She curtsied as Lady Cowper hurried in. The Viscountess managed to smile.

‘You have very pretty handwriting, my dear. The message implied what I think it implied, did it not?’

Skerrett glanced at the footmen. One began to whistle. Others joined in, looking hard at the floor or ceiling. The tuneless shrill grew loud enough to cover up the dresser’s words.

‘Yes, your ladyship. Her Majesty is...she is quite frightened.’

‘And quite alone. Oh, poor child! God bless you for helping her so. Where is she?’

Thirty years between them, and Lady Cowper was a swifter runner. Skerrett had only to point the way; she puffed along at the Viscountess’ flying heels, and caught up to close the drawing room door between them. A glimpse of the firelit interior - warm arms enveloping the Queen - made the dresser retreat with a smile that ached.

Lady Cowper smoothed the tumbled head against her shoulder. Such stiffness in the soft little frame. She understood much too well. The night after her first true meeting with Victoria, she had knelt by her own bed, drawn Palmerston to his knees beside her, and thanked God that William was to be the poor child’s husband.

‘Truly, what woman,’ she had whispered to her daughter’s father, ‘what woman the Queen has ever known has treated her truly as she ought to be treated? You know how shamefully her mother stood between her and Queen Adelaide...oh, how Adelaide would have liked to treat the princess as her own! I think it might have healed two hearts, after so many babies lost. But the Duchess would not allow it, and now the Dowager Queen is too frail. Such a shameful waste and cruelty! All the more, now, her niece must have absolute affection. William will bestow it.’

‘My love,’ Palmerston smiled, ‘I know you are itching to add your own.’

‘Oh, I want that dreadfully, my love. If only she will trust me.’

Victoria wanted so badly to hide her face in her sister-in-law’s gown, and not be pushed away, no matter how hard she cried. She wanted to tell her all she felt. Perhaps - perhaps - Emily would truly understand. Perhaps Emily would not take her tears as ammunition for further hurt. The woman who had not yet said ‘control yourself, for shame’ or ‘unseemly’ or ‘do you wish to blotch your face?’ might not store up this moment for future condemnation, a future argument of her feebleness or hysteria.

She had felt wanted, a week past. She had felt so much wanted when Emily ran to embrace her. To cry in her arms might wash off the stain of the Duchess’ words.

The idea could not grow real. She could not hold on to it. There was no-one but Lord M who could hear her speak her whole true heart, and listen without impatience. No-one to whom she was precious enough.

‘Precious girl,’ said Lady Cowper. ‘My poor precious girl. Let me help you.’

Dash made a leap from the sofa. He landed sprawled across their arms. Victoria jumped - the Duchess would drop him. Emily laughed, and held him closer.

‘As graceful as you are beautiful, young man,’ and she scratched his back. He wagged, but his eyes and kisses were for the Queen. He snuffed at the tear glittering on her cheek. The Viscountess wiped it away.

‘Lady Cowper,’ Victoria whispered. ‘I am sorry to call you out in the snow.’

‘It is not the slightest trouble...’

More tears were rolling down. Emily tucked the Queen’s head back onto her shoulder. The girl’s pallor was near blue. A sickish smell hung round her.

‘Don’t be frightened, my dear. I shall keep you safe.’

‘What if that makes you not safe?’

‘I do not care. I am old, Your Majesty. Life no longer shakes me as it once did.’ She kissed the damp brow. ‘Believe me, my dear girl. My brother will return tomorrow, and he will find you with the roses back in your cheeks.’

‘Not if I am sick again...’

Lady Cowper waited, turning gently from foot to foot, rocking the Queen. Let her choose her own words, she told herself. Few others have let her do so.

From under the pile of curls, she heard a wavering ‘Emily?’

‘Yes, my dear?’

‘I believe I may have...I may have conceived.’

Victoria felt a sob rising. Joy and shock had woven too tight. As the sob hiccupped out, Lady Cowper stroked her hair.

‘What can I do to help you, Your Majesty? Anything at all. Anything in the whole world.’

The Queen clung to the Viscountess’ gown. Held thus, crying into such beautiful silk, she felt like the smallest child. Yet a child might already be cradled in the depths of her body. The new year might turn through its seasons, and find her under autumn trees, walking with an infant in her arms.

‘I seem,’ she sniffed, ‘I seem to be sending a great many messages today.’

‘Send a hundred, my sweet girl.’

Drawing the ringlets back, Emily was glad to see a little colour in the too-white face. The Queen was clinging to her as all her own children had clung. None of them had held on with so fragile a grip. Such a doubtful, wistful need. Damn the Duchess, she thought, damn her to death and whatever lies beyond.

‘Lady Cowper,’ said Victoria, ‘please would you write to Lord M for me? I should like him to know today. But he must not come back tonight! You must not make him think he should, not at all. The weather is too dangerous.’

‘You are blessedly kind to him.’ Emily kissed her brow. ‘Let us write it together, and you shall tell me what you do not like.’

They rang for Skerrett. The dresser brought notepaper; the Queen and the Viscountess sat side by side on the sofa. Dash plumped down between them, his panting jaws once more like a smile. His tail patted a gentle rhythm against the cushions.

As Emily wrote, she blinked back a tear of her own. The sofa was so low, and still Victoria’s feet did not quite reach the floor.


	32. Brocket

The carriages of the Cabinet rolled away down Brocket’s drive. Russell and Cottenham had raced each other to the head of the procession, and the Lord Chancellor had nearly overturned. With dusk deepening, they still wove and barged between the high-shovelled snowdrifts. Palmerston, next in line, pulled down the window to watch them. The wind gnawed at his face. It was worth a chapped nose, seeing the Whigs’ most illustrious figures drive like schoolboys, splattering each others’ coaches with gleeful mud.

Their second meeting following the engagement had been even more productive than the first. And the first had been a revelation. Every man as taut as a harp string, standing with twitching eyes around the Downing Street table. Then in had come Melbourne, weariest of all, calmest of all, and he had bowed to them all, including men outranked by his title. He had said, softly, ‘Gentlemen, I am sorry to cause you such trouble.’

And the tension punctured and sank down. Elderly statesmen and young sighed ‘Damn you, Viscount,’ and reached for their papers.

The debate began. Words came in better sense than their exhaustion should have allowed. Speaking over colleagues seemed less enticing than usual. The Prime Minister ordered strong coffee and a delivery from the nearest bakery. The Cabinet scattered crumbs, daubed the tabletop with sugar, juggled cups and pens - and no item on the agenda was left out. In the eye of Britain’s storm, they were still breathing clear, and frightened men worked on, talked on.

Four snowy days later, Brocket had housed another superb meeting. It was almost possible to forget the engagement. The waves of its shock were still sweeping across Europe and the Empire. Somehow the Cabinet still balanced opium, corn, Chartists. They touched lastly on the wedding. Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day; thousands of onlookers. They began to outline security.

The estate was ringed by policemen and guns. Peel had received a note of thanks from Melbourne. Within the note was the suggestion of a cross-party alliance. A merging of Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet during the period of the wedding and its aftermath. A naming of Sir Robert as Deputy Prime Minister.

Peel sat down and stared at air. He was alone in his study. Alone as though in some silent cabin; some mountain fastness. The snow was piled against the windows. In this room, this faded and creaking chair, how many days - how many long sour-mouthed nights - had he dreamed of wresting power from the Whigs? How he had cursed the Prime Minister, when the Queen refused to give up her ladies, when the hope of Tory government fell to dust. How he had - God help him - how viciously he had cursed the Queen. He had dreamed in rage.

He had not dreamed of this. Government carved to a new shape. A plinth upon the long road of history, graven with his name. This was the gift of Melbourne. This could be the destruction of Melbourne.

Head in his hands, he sat silently, until his daughter wandered through the door. Her spaniel followed her. Two small arms round his neck, two paws on his knee, roused the Leader of the Opposition from his thoughts.

‘Papa,’ she said, ‘is it true that Her Majesty has a spaniel too?’

‘Yes, my dear...yes. Quite right. Not so pudgy as this fellow here.’

Eliza heard the little hidden crack in his voice. She lifted Fido; set his dear comforting softness in Peel’s lap. Then she pressed her cheek to her father’s, and stood with him in the dusk.

Scores of miles away, along Brocket’s greying drive, the ministers were falling back into line. The policemen unfastened the gates. The journalists were shoved back. One by one the Cabinet carriages rolled out through the crowd.

Palmerston heard their shouting draw closer. He fastened his window shut, and leaned back into the seat. He closed his eyes an instant too soon to see the horse that galloped past, in through the gate, up the drive. The crowd’s noise covered up the hoofbeats - the rattle of snow they threw against the window. The horse and the rider pounded on towards the Hall.

Melbourne stood in the doorway, watching the last ministers depart. It was a purple silken twilight. The slow clouds at the edges of the sky had not yet massed. He rubbed his eyes.

‘Sir! Is that Lord Melbourne?’

He heard the young voice shout above the hoofbeats. The horse skidded across the forecourt, and the Prime Minister stepped out of the door.

‘Exceptional riding,’ he said, patting the white-sweating side. ‘You mustn’t waste your talent with a fall on the ice.’

The boy coloured, grinned; bowed from the saddle, handed down a note, and waited as the Viscount opened it, as the tired eyes scanned down. Down, and stopped. And then in Melbourne’s eyes was all the shadow of the dusk, and all the sky’s last tender light. A dawn painful as the darkness.

‘Go and rest your horse.’

‘Thank you, sir, but I should take back your -’

‘I’ll be taking the reply myself. You can stay here tonight, and ride back when the weather clears.’

Melbourne led the boy and the horse to the stables. There he ordered his heaviest carriage. The apprentice who always wanted a challenge leapt to the box. The senior coachman handed up the whips.

‘You really don’t mind?’ asked the junior.

‘Mind? I’m blessedly grateful. It must be a powerful reason, taking His Lordship out in this weather. Looks like more snow, too. Watch out for Ruby Red on the corners. Mare swings out like a pendulum.’

‘Ah, I love her for it.’

The elder chuckled. ‘Good lad. Take care of our man, won’t you? He’s got enough to fear without a spill on the London road.’

‘He’s safe with me and Ruby, don’t you fret, Granddad...’

The apprentice dodged a cuff. They watched together as the grooms harnessed up the team of four. Tough, heavy-coated horses. The frail beauties stayed in their stalls.

Melbourne tugged on his overcoat. Heat and cold chased through his body. Emily had known he would come to the palace. He could hear the resignation in her words. More snow would fall on icy roads, a harsher wind would blow, and she had written ‘The Queen wishes you to know immediately; she wishes me to send you all her love and reassure you that she is well. She does not wish to summon you on a dangerous journey at night.’ At the bottom of the letter, in a quicker hand, she had scribbled ‘Drive with great care, William. You fool. Your sister also loves you.’

His mind turned around a room in the palace. He was already there. His breath was in Victoria’s chest, his pulse in her throat. Every touch of his hands - buttoning his coat, tying his scarf - every touch was on her skin.

His hands moved with their own deftness, outside the weak tremor of his mind. He reached for the bundle of flowers he had swept from the glasshouses. Every flower that meant love. He ran down through the house where he had grieved, where his daughter had drawn her few breaths, where Caro had once loved him, where he had so loved Augustus.

Outside Augustus’ room, he stopped. He leaned his head against the panels of the door. Augustus had wept for months after his sister died. The girl no-one else had named had been Emily in her brother’s heart. His aunt had wept with him.

The door was cold against Melbourne’s face. In another world, he would push down the handle. He would go into the room, and the bright childish face would turn to listen. At the news, the voice that came and went would burst out. Augustus would scramble for toys to send with his father. He would squeal like singing, flicker the hands that spoke for him. He would rock his arms and laugh.

In a farther sweeter world, this door would lead only to a boyhood room. No toys frozen in their final postures; no shelves of medicine, no drawings so much too young for a man in his twenties. No memory of this room would be frozen. In that world, Melbourne would go to Augustus, to Augustus’ sister, in their own homes, among their own families, and tell them of their sibling.

In this world, he would tell it to their graves. He kissed the cold door. He walked on through his silent house, hearing his heartbeat, holding the flowers against his chest. He ran out into the first whirl of snow.


	33. Kiss

In the silent room, long after midnight, Victoria lay awake. She lay curled up, nose in the pillow. It was right that Lord M stay at Brocket. She was glad he would stay there, and not drive on these roads, in this wind. She had not been sick again. She had stopped crying. He would be with her the next day.

She turned her face deeper into the fabric that smelled of him. She held her own hand; wound her fingers tight. The fire's lingering glow showed too well the empty side of the bed. She hid her eyes.

‘Lord M,’ she said. ‘I need you.’

Melbourne heard from the corridor. He was walking barefoot, avoiding the boards that creaked. Her door was ajar - as if she had hoped - had wished.

He pulled the door just wide enough to slip through. He closed it silently. The Queen had not spoken again. Talking in her sleep. He saw the faint curve of her face; her linked hands white and tiny among the firelit blankets.

At the end of the bed, Dash thumped his tail. Victoria did not turn her head. She wanted to sink into her thoughts. She could think her husband here. Thinking might weave into dreaming. He would lie beside her. She would feel his arms; his voice.

Already dreams were gathering. She dreamed that Dash was wagging as he only wagged for Lord M. She heard his tail speed up as it always did when Lord M reached to stroke him.

The Prime Minister rubbed the spaniel’s ears with the back of his hand. His fingers were chafed. On the borders of London, where the carriage met an impassable drift, the coachman had unharnessed one horse and driven the three remaining to a coaching inn, while the Viscount rode on. He had not worn riding gloves. Dash sniffed the sore skin.

‘Don’t worry,’ Melbourne mouthed. ‘Good boy.’

Victoria smiled into the pillow. She smelled flowers. Always flowers when she dreamed of him. Gardenias were in the dream-scent. She breathed deep.

He laid the flowers across the mantelpiece, out of Dash’s reach. His overcoat was soggy with ice. He hung it over a chair's back. His hat was ruined. That Dash could have, at an hour less quiet. The dog wagged on.

In shirtsleeves, Melbourne stepped to the side of the bed. The Queen’s face was hidden. He did not draw the blankets back. He sat slowly down beside her.

She felt the bed dip. Now, as in waking truth, he would lie down. She would turn to him, reach for him, and he would draw her into his body. He would kiss her face.

Her face was in the pillow. His weight on the bed - still there, but the dream had grown slow. It did not lie him beside her. She pressed her eyes tighter closed.

He sat and gazed at her. The night he had first lain in her bed, she had been drained by tears. She had fallen asleep with her arm tight around his neck; their lips so close that her breath was his. He had woken with his hand on her belly. In the sunlit sheets, she had touched him to burning, and he had kissed her, breathless and clutching and blazing raw.

Victoria unwove her hands. One moved, heavy, across the blanket. She felt for his imagined warmth. At last, there...hovering against her skin. She sighed. She turned her closed eyes towards the space where he would lie.

Melbourne held his hand above hers. She had reached for him. Feeling the heat of his palm, she was quiet. The light lay smooth over her face.

In a wilder firelight, a dance of gold throwing back the dark, he had first known her body. In the cold white fog of Windsor, he had first known the certainty of this. The inevitable unalterable certainty. In night and in storm and in blindness, in the hour of death, he would feel her hand in his.

The heat over Victoria’s hand was spreading up her arm. So real that it pricked at her heart. Can you feel it? she wondered. Little child, if you are here, can you feel it too?

The fire was settling with a last flicker of sparks. It rustled, and the sound was pulling her back - back into loneliness. She flinched. It would pull him from her. Clumsily she turned her hand, reached up, following the warmth that would fade away.

It was no longer warmth. It was skin, his palm, his wrist, grazes on his hand. His hand, wrapping around hers.

Her hand wound into his. Dreaming - dreaming grazes on his skin - dampness on his sleeve. She drew his hand to her face. His wrist heavy against her lips. She opened her eyes, looked up between his fingers.

‘Lord M?’

He tried to touch her gently. But she gasped and gripped his sleeve, and pulled him down into her arms.

‘I was trying to dream. Oh, I wanted you here so badly.’

‘Ma’am, I am here. I am here with you.’

‘It was so dangerous,’ and she pressed her mouth to his, tangled her hands through his hair, her leg over his hips, ‘it was so very dangerous for you to come. I wanted you not to. I wanted you to be here and not come. I wanted it so much.’

‘If I could perform magic, Ma’am, I would have made it so.’

He slid his arm under her back, arched her body up into his. Her hands slid on his damp shirt. She tugged at the buttons, her lips to his ear - nipping briefly, kissing under it, sliding her palms up his sides as she pulled the hem away. ‘Off,’ she murmured, ‘off. You’ll be cold.’

‘Not like this,’ he pulled her in tighter, kissed the curve of her neck, ‘never, Ma’am.’

He could not let go of her to shrug out of the fabric. A seam ripped. Something hot and shaky in his gut remembered other torn shirts. The knife before her face. Her face when he found her in the woods, smeared with Dash’s blood. Melbourne shuddered.

Victoria caught his hands, pulled them loose from the sleeves. She threw the shirt over the side of the bed. The spaniel wiggled down after it. Hearing further tearing, the Queen covered her mouth. The Prime Minister laughed. How simply she washed his mind clean.

‘It was a very old shirt,’ he whispered.

‘A very wet one. Come under the blankets. Please, Lord M. Listen to your wife.’

She tucked the blankets over him. He smoothed her hair back. Her smile was in his eyes. She waved her fingers; the white gardenia. He kissed it. A long still kiss. Then he slid his lips down her wrist, her forearm, down between her collarbones to the swell of her breasts, the thick catch of her breathing. He kissed her heartbeat.

Her spine bent. She reached for his hand, grounding herself - he held it, palm to palm. Her pulse was the tick of time.

‘My wife,’ he said. ‘You have my soul.’

Against the dark, she saw the sudden shimmer of his tears. She reached to his cheek. A drop ran over her fingertips.

He leaned down to her stomach. She sat up. His hand gripped hers - she gripped back, one hand finding his hair, winding, stroking.

‘Don’t be afraid, Lord M.'

His tears fell on her skin. He brushed his lips across its softness. Her breath was gone. All gone with his kiss, so gentle, shaking with his disbelief, his quiet weeping. His kiss to her belly.

He lay with his head on her thighs; his cheek against the skin he had kissed. She leaned over him. Her hair fell around his face. She cradled him in the dwindling firelight.


	34. Perfect

When Melbourne woke, the Queen was already at her desk by the window. She sat in her nightgown, loose hair curling onto the tabletop, hand rushing over sheets of paper.

‘Ma’am?’

At his sleepy voice, she jumped up. Her hair whirled around her - the sun darting through it wrapped her in gold - he smiled, and she felt her own smile grow, seeing them half tucked into the blankets: Dash upside down at Melbourne’s feet, paws heavenward; and her husband gazing into the light, its glow bright on the bare curve of his chest, on the hand rubbing his eyes. She bounced to the bedside. Her arm curved round his head as she bent and kissed him.

‘You were so tired, Lord M,’ she said, nose to his.

‘Not tired enough to laze about while you were working...’

‘Yes, tired enough! You rode all through that terrible weather,’ kissing his cheek, ‘you were covered in snow,’ kissing his chin, ‘and Dash chewed up your shirt.’

‘A crippling loss.’

‘He has already hung you out another. Look...there, by the hearth.’

‘Even without thumbs! What a very clever young man.’

He felt a weight bumble up over the blanket. Beside Victoria’s shoulder, the spaniel appeared, licking and wagging. One swipe of his tongue reached both their faces. The fire-warm air was full of laughter, kisses, whiskers tickling.

‘Ma’am, what is this ferocious beast attempting to devour us?’

‘He is a Carolingian Lion, of course, Lord M! Don’t be anxious. He is fed purely on gentlemen’s clothing.’

Dash could not decide whom to kiss first. He squiggled to and fro, ears flat, tail drumming. Victoria smiled down at their picture. The mingling of firelight and sunlight cast a velvet sheen across the Prime Minister’s skin. The graceful flex of his arm, his hair ruffled wild by the pillow. She reached to the night-table.

‘My sketchbook...oh, wherever has it gone? I thought I left it here...’

Melbourne guided her hand away from its search. He turned it to his lips. Above her fingers, his eyes held a gentle cautioning.

A tremble of resentment passed through her. Resentment from an earlier time. Perhaps from Alexandrina, the anger woven so deep, the bruising still so tender. But this was Lord M. The warning in his eyes was no threat. No smug enjoyment of control, like Conroy, like the Duchess. Behind his worry lay her safety. Hers and the Crown’s.

She let her sigh come soundlessly. Leaning over him, she pressed her lips to his hand, where beneath his hand was hers, and beneath her hand his lips.

‘Perhaps I had better sketch when we are dressed.’

‘You are wise, Ma’am.’

‘No, you are wise, Lord M. You know I would have done it.’

‘And you would have done nothing wrong.’

Catching her discomfort, he drew her down, closer. She tucked herself along the length of his frame; her head onto his chest. His heartbeat patted her ear.

‘I trust my servants,’ she muttered.

‘So do I, Ma’am. They are excellent. But they learn a great deal more of us than we wish to believe. It is my wish - my fervent wish - to save you from any more scandal than you already face.’

‘Skerrett would not rifle my sketchbook.’

‘Miss Skerrett’s keys might be stolen, my darling.’ 

‘Then the thief would be dismissed! Skerrett would be so upset...’

He kissed her wrinkling eyebrow. ‘I know you would not blame her,’ and he smiled at the nod that rippled her hair. ‘I do know, Ma’am. But the drawing would already be in other people’s hands. They could do what they liked with it.’

‘Horrid!’

‘Yes, Ma’am. Very horrid.’

So many drawings, during Caro’s affair. Caricatures in every single newspaper. The sympathetic cartoonists had made him a noble figure, distanced him, twisted his wife and her lover into dark grotesques of lust. The unsympathetic had drawn his face onto footstools and pavements; ladders and stairs up which Caro climbed to a waiting Byron. He had seen himself on hands and knees, crawling along at the end of the chain she held.

Those cartoons had worsened in measure with her behaviour. Mockery had hardened to disgust. Instead of Melbourne the dog, Melbourne the footstool, there had been only Caroline Lamb the lunatic, the harpy, her self-wounded arms bandaged thick as a mummy, staggering after the poet who fled from her in the greatest disgust of all.

Melbourne's gaze was sore with the gathering phantoms. Victoria drew herself further up along his body. She laced her hands across his collarbone. He was drawn from the past by her stare; her dimples peeking. Mischief sparkled round her like a rain of stars.

‘What if,’ she blinked up through her lashes, ‘what if I were to say that I had drawn from my imagination?’

She touched his throat as he swallowed. Her nails whispered against the shadow of beard.

‘Ma’am, I think you know...I am sure you know that such a declaration would meet with an even angrier response.’

She made her fingers tiptoe up over his jaw. She followed his flush, her most favourite shade of pink and red, more beautiful than any flower or sunset. It tinted his cheekbones. She kissed it there.

‘I do know,’ she mouthed against his skin. ‘They would be less shocked that I had lain with you than that I had imagined lying with you. For I am the purest maiden, Lord M. I should not harbour such thoughts, Lord M. I should not possess any smidgen of the knowledge that could yield such thoughts, Lord M...’

His arms came tight around her. She felt herself lift with the quickening of his breath. He turned her face to see her eyes, and saw his own face in them, floating there in the blue of dreams.

‘Ma’am, you might have thought with greater freedom had you lived in an earlier time. Even twenty years earlier.’

‘I am sure I should have. I hear ever such stories of the Regency.’

‘Most are true. Especially true where they concern me.’

‘I love you more for it!’ Her eyes lit hot with the familiar defence. ‘What should you know of the world if you had never done bad things? Or seen bad things done which you could not prevent? How could you ever have taught me then?’

‘I might have come to you with a purer heart.’

‘A heart like a silly boy’s, you mean, who understands nothing about anything. And I would not have wanted you. I would have had Robert Peel for my Private Secretary, and he would have bored me until I cried, and then Dash would have bitten him.’

‘And civil war would have erupted, Ma’am, over one little set of teeth.’

‘Yes, it would! You see? What you have given me has always been what I needed. You showed me that I could be strong and good, when I only felt angry. You were tender when I did not deserve it - no, Lord M, shush! - I know I very often did not. You were kind when you must have wanted to shout at me. Even when you were trying to stop me from doing the stupidest things...you were never, never cruel. You would have broken your own heart to see me happy.’

‘Happy and safe.’

‘I could never have been safe without you. Never at all happy. You knew it in the end.’

‘In the mist, Ma’am. Outside the gates of Windsor.’

Her grin scrunched up the tip of her nose. He kissed her nose and her lips. Within the crook of his arm, the spaniel was dozing again. Melbourne rubbed his knuckles across the tufty stomach. Victoria picked a trace of fabric from Dash’s claws.

‘Perhaps you should walk about today with no shirt at all. I can imagine many more things then.’

‘You can imagine them for the whole day’s time before the entire charted world hears of our moral breakdown, and the Empire cracks apart.’

‘Oh, very well. Then let me have one moment more.’

Her hands idled across his skin. He held her by her warm waist; kissed her throat, her shoulder as her nightgown slipped down. She squirmed her way under the blanket. He rolled her away from the edge of the bed - they lay face to face, eyes level - Dash slept deep on the other pillow. The clock on the mantel began to chime nine, and suddenly she touched with urgency. He caught her hips. She tugged at him, nodding into his neck, her leg bending tight over his body, her mind whirling with gratitude that they had not changed. Nothing was less. The heat came as easily, the rhythm branded through her heart, and he knew that she would not break. Only when she arched, clutched, did he whisper into her lips ‘Are you well?’

‘Perfect...perfect, oh, nothing is like this, nothing,’ and she pressed his face to hers, the rising note of her gasping muffled in his lips. He kissed a living flame. He was burning with her, lost in her blinding sweetness. She was lost in the joy of him. The joy spinning away all time, all truth, all else but them, but this.

He felt his pulse flutter slowly down. She kissed the tears from his cheeks.

‘Are you well?’ she murmured.

Their open hands met. Her fingers spread his apart. On the morning after their wedding, he had gazed at her and seen Heaven. An angel in his arms. Now she glowed still warmer.

‘I am well if you are well, Ma’am.’

‘Then we are well. And,’ her dimples showed deep, ‘it is late.’

He helped her out of bed. They dressed together. Before he fastened her corset he knelt down, and pressed his lips to her belly. She drew her fingers through his hair, up from the nape of his neck, over his head, pulling the curls down over his brow. His smile tickled her.

‘Kiss it for me too,’ she giggled. ‘I cannot contort myself.’

He pressed a dozen kisses to her skin. At the sharp rumble of her stomach, he laughed, kissed once more.

‘Breakfast, Ma’am?’

‘Oh, yes, Lord M. I am very, very hungry.’

She swung his hand as they walked through her apartments. The smell of toast curled among the rooms. She pulled him along faster. The smell of ham touched her, and she sidled. She slowed.

Melbourne saw her face drain white. White sickened to green. She swallowed - gurgled - glanced up at him, and dropped his hand and ran.

Only a moment, he faltered. His heart should be freezing. At another proof, a further step to certainty, he should be sinking into shame. He had done this. His carelessness. He had cracked the Crown; hung the Whigs over a precipice; sown the roots of his wife’s humiliation. He should be faint with guilt.

Guilt ached in his veins. Fear ached as deep. Deepest and swiftest of all was the wave of wonder. His heart was galloping before it. He was smiling, smiling as he ran after her, as he found her huddled into the corner of a sofa, her face in a jug that had held water. The water was running across the floor. Quietly he drew a rug over the pool.

‘Don’t look at me!’ echoed within the depths of the jug. He sat down beside the Queen, and rubbed her clenched leg.

‘Ma’am, if you had contracted leprosy, I would still love to look at you.’

She raised one eye above the china handle. ‘Lord M, if I were a leper, I would not let you near me...’

‘I would rather be ill with you than healthy without you.’

Retching again, she brushed her toes against his arm. He scooped the curls back from her brow. His father - or, at least, his mother’s husband - would scoff to see him now. Playing nursemaid!...Well, well, Peniston Lamb would snort: the boy was always soft as dough. But must he really embarrass his poor little wife? And Melbourne had once thought the first Viscount right, when Caro recoiled from every bid he made to comfort her. Every time he had tried to hold her hair or wash her face. Emily’s husband, too, for every single pregnancy, had left her alone with her maids. But Emily was Emily, and she had asked for her favourite brother’s help, and he had skipped sessions of Parliament to go and play with his nephews and nieces, and keep them from under their mother’s wobbling feet.

Victoria touched his hand. She nudged her temple into his palm, wanting to kiss it - heaving even harder. ‘I thought,’ she shuddered between retches, ‘I thought husbands ran away when their wives were sick...’

‘Some husbands do.’

‘Is it dreadful that I am still hungry?’

‘It will be dreadful if you cannot breakfast. What about toast and tea? Eggs? I could soften up the toast, if that would make it easier to eat.’

‘I love you very much, Lord M.’

‘I love you very, very much, Ma’am.’

He pinned her curls up away from the jug, and kissed her crimson cheek. When he made to stand, she gripped his fingers. ‘No, no,’ she squeaked, ‘ring for Skerrett, please. I want you here. Please?’

Old sour voices rattled in her head. Drina, you do not sound at all royal. Please! Please! Do you forget that you are a Queen? You sound quite feeble, girl. For shame. Sit up and show a little decorum. This is a dreadful display.

She pushed her face further into the jug. Her stomach was turning itself inside out. She would not listen to those voices. They could not wound her. Lord M was with her. He had left only to ring the bell. Now he was here, sitting closer to her. His arm came round her back; his hand to her head, holding it steady. She leaned into his strength.

Dash pattered through the doorway - launched himself into Melbourne’s lap. The Viscount held him there. ‘Don’t worry,’ he murmured. ‘Good boy.’

The dog sat neatly on the Prime Minister’s knees, and gazed at the Queen. He pawed the air. She peered far enough upward to see him; to reach and scratch his chest. His eyes were full of affection.

Skerrett’s eyes were downturned. She carried in the plate of toast; the weak, weak tea; the eggs that Mr Francatelli thought were for her, because she had told him a little lie, that she liked them boiled very thoroughly. She remembered so many girls with child. She had helped where she could, and learned everywhere.

Not a single one had sat as she saw Her Majesty sitting. She drew up a table before the head of Britain’s government, and Britain’s sovereign. She set the food on the table, and curtsied, and murmured in response to Melbourne’s ‘You are very kind,’ and Victoria’s stifled ‘Is that Skerrett? Thank you, Skerrett,’ and hurried out of the room.

In the corridor, the dresser looked about. She was alone. Completely alone. She could close the door, and along the thick carpet she could dance. She could throw her arms up and wheel around with the dearness and the pleasure of what she had seen.

‘Oh, Lord,’ she prayed, in time with her dance, ‘if I’m ever to have a husband - a cheeky one, with a nice moustache, maybe - let him act like that when I’m expecting. Lord, that’s the only thing I ask for. Let him act just like that.’


	35. Rumour

In the lobby of the House of Commons, its floor shiny with tracked-in snow, Peel stamped up behind the Foreign Secretary, and gave his coat a rough tug. Palmerston turned; poked the tip of his tongue out of the corner of his mouth, and listened, otherwise solemn. The Deputy Prime Minister grew grumpier.

‘There’s appetite for a cross-party committee, Viscount. And you resemble a dog.’

‘Ruff. Cross-party, you say? In further news, the Day of Judgment is upon us...’

‘Spare me your facetiousness. I’ve had no sleep at all.’

The Tory could not sound as angry as he wished. At three in the morning, he had shambled towards his study to fill a glass with something that would burn, and to sit with that glass under his thundercloud of thoughts. But one of his daughters had somehow sensed, from a child’s untroubled sleep and from half the mansion away, that Papa was suffering. He had heard her footsteps just in time to fling his brandy at the fireplace. It sent up a magnificent rainbow flame that delighted Eliza and startled her spaniel. When Peel managed to hush her squeals of ‘magic fire!’, she spoke gravely: why could Papa not sleep? Was the House of Cottons worrying him very much? He must sleep anyway. She had bullied him onto the window seat and draped Fido over his lap. Now, she told him, he would sleep easily.

He had snored realistically enough to satisfy her. She had cuddled up to them both and fallen asleep herself. Carrying her and the fat dog back to her bedroom and tucking them in had freshened his mood. He had taken a lantern, gone out to the grounds, and tramped around them, with the bright yellow light in his hand and the crunch-squeak of new snow beneath his boots. The dawn had been well worth watching. He had kissed all his family good morning, sugared his tea, and stared out from his carriage window at the crisp white beauty of London’s morning.

Still...this was Palmerston. Palmerston was an irritation. Wellington dealt with the fellow far better than he could, but Wellington, damn him, was in a mood to enjoy the crowd’s attention. A crowd there was, a ridiculous crowd, thronging up to the doors and his beleaguered policemen; stretching out across the road, further and further. The Duke was sailing into Parliament through several thousand figures. Figures who shouted and pushed, reached into their pockets, grabbed at Wellington’s coat, and all the while that thumping noise. Not a single bodyguard. Peel envied the soldier his fearlessness.

At last, there the tall figure was, in the doorway, profile unmistakeable, turning to look out across the Square.

‘For Heaven’s sake, they aren’t an army,’ Peel groused. Palmerston poked his tongue out of the other side of his mouth.

The Duke felt a certain warmth towards the roaring multitude. He raised his hand to them. Was the great cheer that rose meant for the Iron Duke? For the Tories? Against Melbourne? - he almost thought ‘poor Melbourne’, damn it all. If this nightmare did not knock Parliament to the ground, it would cripple every one of her Members with its sheer confusion. Hardly a quarter of any party truly wanted to do the Viscount harm. There were not even a dozen scoundrels within the Houses’ full capacity who wished ill on the lovely young Queen.

‘Your Grace! What is the business of Parliament today?’

‘Don’t you know already, young fellow?’

The boy wobbled, and another fresh-faced reporter elbowed him out of the way.

‘Please, Your Grace - I hear that the Duchess of Kent has entirely removed her household to Kensington. I hear that she and the Queen have quarrelled most seriously over the recent change in Her Majesty's circumstances. Can you confirm, sir? Is the Duchess angry at so early a wedding date? Did Her Majesty dismiss her mother because the Duchess disapproves of her union with Lord Melbourne? Or was the dismissal Lord Melbourne’s wish?’

Wellington closed his mouth and walked on through the doorway. He strode between Peel and Palmerston; gripped their arms and towed them roughly along with him.

‘Gentlemen,’ he grunted. ‘A dewy-skinned puppy with a notebook appears to know something sordid. If the leak has come from either of your circles, you can bid your careers farewell.’

Peel had no retort to snap back. His heart was dropping into his wet shoes.

‘How sordid?’ He felt his voice waver. ‘Surely the lad didn’t say -’

‘Not in so many words. Oh, everyone past his schooldays knows that the girl’s expecting, Robert! But they can all look past it, can’t they? They can all forget that they know, so long as things stay clean and pretty. What I heard outside is not a pretty rumour. We need to dig a grave for this and bury it today.’

Palmerston nodded. He did not try to pull himself free from the soldier’s grip. Wellington’s face was crimson. The old man’s eyes seemed carved out of fire.

‘That boy asked me to confirm that the Queen has argued severely enough with her mother to blast the Duchess off to Kensington. Moreover, he had numerous succulent notions as to the argument’s cause, including a suggestion that Melbourne has purposely engineered a separation for his own convenience.’

Peel was miserably white; wordless, for once.

‘I didn’t know,’ said the younger Tory, ‘no idea - I had no idea at all that Her Majesty had quarrelled with her mother.’

‘Emily went to comfort her,’ replied Palmerston. ‘By what she told me, the fault was entirely with the Duchess. However...I sense that the woman has tried very hard to dissuade the Queen from this marriage. The story has that much truth, I’m afraid.’

The Duke coughed and scowled. He sped up, grip tighter. The spectacle of two tall men being dragged across the floor like children was summoning every pair of eyes in the building. Politicians were walking out of the House to stand and stare. Palmerston sighed.

‘We’re exciting attention, Your Grace...’

‘I’ll excite much more if you don’t give me better counterattacks than those I have. I want to send the Duchess of Kent back to Germany. Is there any sure proof that she was fornicating with Conroy?’

‘No, there is not. Lower your voice, sir. And you know very well that any such revelation would hideously embarrass the Queen.’

‘If the public starts believing that the Queen has wronged her mother, there’ll be much worse embarrassment. If, by God, they believe that Melbourne pushed the girl into some cruelty towards the Duchess...that he wields such influence over her...all the repugnant woman’s snakery will be forgotten, and she’ll become an angel of light who tried in vain to save her thankless daughter from a conniving seducer, and then Her Majesty and the Prime Minister will be dragged into the dirt, and how cold might the wind blow then? It might blow all the way to an abdication. All the way to a luckless infant with Cumberland looming over the cradle. By God! I won’t watch it happen!’

Tears flickered in Wellington’s eyes. Peel’s own throat lumped. He looked around the Duke; frowned at Palmerston. Between them, they slowed the soldier’s rush into a tense walk.

‘Her expenses,’ Peel said. ‘If you want to throw more tempting meat to the press, Your Grace...’

‘Her expenses aren’t tempting enough, damn it. Nothing would be enough but the Conroy story. And...ah, here’s the rub...someone could always turn that into a suggestion that the Queen is Conroy’s daughter. Not that any man alive could look into her eyes and think it true.’

Palmerston cleared his throat. The Duke sniffed as he leaned down to listen.

‘We can flavour the story that’s already brewing, sir. There are plenty of ways to make clear that the cruelty was on the Duchess’ side.’

‘Every way will hurt the Queen,’ Peel hissed. The Viscount briefly raised his fist.

‘You think I don’t know it? I marry her sister-in-law two days from now. The Queen has a wounded little heart, and we’ll be lucky not to break it.’

‘Committee!’ Peel snapped his fingers. ‘The committee for managing the wedding. Hang the wedding! We need a cross-party effort for this, for now, Wellington!’

The Duke slapped his shoulder. ‘Yes. Good man.’

‘Your Grace, it was...I can’t take the credit. Melbourne first had the idea of a committee.’

Behind his blinked-back tears, Wellington’s eyes twinkled brighter. He squeezed Peel’s shoulder, and then, harder, Palmerston’s.

‘We must manage this, gentlemen.’

‘We will!’ crackled Peel. ‘Damnable. It’s all damnable, but this is worst of all. Who leaked the story? Where shall we aim first?’

Palmerston rubbed his chin. ‘I’m afraid that we must take the most direct aim,’ he said. The Tories leaned in. Peel’s fists were half raised, cuffing the chilly air.

‘What, you think - the Duchess herself?’

‘I hope as much as either of you that she was not responsible, nor complicit. However...’

‘I well believe that she was both,’ and Wellington took Peel’s hat from his hands; jammed it onto the Leader’s head. ‘Very well, gentlemen. I release you both from the House today. I shall lead the debate as to Melbourne’s royal title, and you may attend to these rumours.’

The Duke swept away. Palmerston and Peel stood and looked at each other.

‘Might be I’m mistaken,’ said Peel, ‘but I thought I was Deputy Prime Minister...’

‘Do you know, sir, I thought the same! I also thought my party was in government. Whom will you visit first?’

‘I’ll go and visit some editors, by God...’

‘Very well. Don’t talk with your fists.’

‘I’ll talk with a whip if it makes my meaning clearer!’

‘In all truth, I’m tempted to do the same.’

Palmerston held out his hand. Peel grasped and squeezed it. The Whig did not wince. A smile fleeted over the Tory’s face.

‘Let’s communicate, then,’ he said. ‘You can send me word of whatever you discover.’

‘Sir Robert, I’m going to the Queen. Let us hope my silver tongue does not desert me.’

Peel’s snorting hoot of laughter made the onlookers stare. Men of every party skittered towards the doors, watching the pair leave, the policemen shoving them a path through the journalists.

‘What could that have been?’ asked one young Member of another.

‘A hundred things. Perhaps Peel really is to form a minority government.’

‘It would be a cursed government, Will. Wait for the next majority.’

‘Oh, I shall. I haven’t the least desire to govern before we’ve washed the bloodied opium from our hands.’ The Member for Newark smoothed his cravat, and ruffled it out again. ‘At least we’ve some distraction from those horrors.’

He led the way back to the House. Settling into his seat, he watched Wellington stump past. The soldier caught his eye; reached out; they shook hands, and the Duke leaned towards his ear.

‘Cross-party committee, Gladstone. Be a good boy and join us.’

‘What do you want me for, sir?’

‘I want wordsmiths and idealists. There’s an ugly leak flowing from Kensington. The stench mustn’t grow any worse.’

‘Something to do with the Duchess of Kent.’

‘Ah. Yes. Something that could be twisted to the Queen’s great disadvantage.’

‘Must I work with Palmerston?’

‘Yes, firebrand, you must. Put aside your differences. This marriage was danger enough to us all without these newest rumours. Able men need to put their heads together, no matter their party. You’ve told us our iniquity in our dealings with China. Now I want you to stand up in this House - today, if you please, or if you don’t please - and tell every man here how iniquitous a parent is who treats a child with cruelty. Your speech will go to the evening papers.’

Gladstone rummaged for a pen and pencil. He bent over his notebook. Wellington, unnoticed, sat down beside him, and watched the speech begin to shape.

****

‘Lord M? Is that you?’

Palmerston, at the drawing room door, heard the Queen call out before the servant could announce him. He rubbed his palm over his smile. The footman smiled inwardly.

‘Lord Palmerston to see you, Ma’am.’

‘Oh! Oh - wait - a moment, if you please.’ Palmerston listened to the scuffling. ‘Dashie, sit down, that’s the very best good boy...Quiet, now.’ He heard her clear her throat, an anxious little cluck. ‘You may come in, Viscount.’

He entered with his eyes down, and raised them only when he had bowed deep. The girl looked at him with the same expression as before. She half trusted, half feared. She poorly hid her nervousness. He wished that he had come on some sweeter errand.

Victoria laid her hand on the spaniel’s head. He sat on the sofa’s cushions, panting. She had spent an hour lying flat among those cushions, with his weight curled beside her and his furry chin on her belly. Could dogs sense when ladies were with child? Dash had wagged as he sniffed around her waist - but then he was always wagging for her. Her dear darling.

‘Lord Palmerston,’ she said, and held out her hand. The Viscount knelt. He touched her fingers very lightly. So lightly that a tremor of danger plucked at her mind.

‘Is there something amiss, sir?’

‘I’m afraid, Ma’am, that there is news of which I must apprise you.’

Palmerston thought he had already chosen all his words. From a politician, they should roll out with such ease, such grace. They should not pain him like a toothache. It was her eyes, the poor girl, those eyes that spoke of unfaded hurt. She was stiffening. Her mouth turned down, for the naked instant before she turned her lips tautly up and motioned to the sofa.

‘Please, sit with me, sir.’

He carried something serious. Surely very serious indeed, to bring him at this hour from the House. And to bring him directly to her. He must know that Lord M was here too, working in the library.

‘I shall call for the Prime Minister,’ she said.

She heard her tone sharp and defensive, almost a threat. It rang different words through the air: I shall call for my husband. Have a care that you do not upset me. You are not as gentle as he, and I do not find you as easy to like as Emily.

With her hand on the bell, and her own voice ugly in her ears, she glanced at the Foreign Secretary. He did not seem offended. He was reaching out to scratch Dash’s head and shake his offered paw.

‘I think,’ he answered, ‘I also think it would be best if Lord Melbourne were here, Ma’am. Thank you.’

The footman went for the Prime Minister. Palmerston played with the spaniel’s velvet ears. When the dog rolled over the politician was grateful. Rubbing the dappled stomach, he could take his eyes from the paling face of the Queen.

Victoria tried to sit up straighter. She was slouching, as Mama had always told her not to do. She was silent, and her silence was discourteous.

‘Lord Palmerston, how are your grandchildren?’

His eyebrows wiggled up. She remembered with a sudden boiling blush what Harriet and Emma had told her of his past. How long he had loved Emily, and how long she had been married to Lord Cowper. Their daughter had been born long before Cowper died, and today was still two days before their wedding.

Palmerston wrestled with his rising laughter. The crimson of the Queen’s cheeks suited her beautifully. The poor girl, he thought once more. She would have learned more of the world had she been raised in a convent.

‘They are well, I thank you, Ma’am. All great admirers of yours.’

She returned his smile, and hoped that hers had not been too brief. He did not seem to be making fun of her. It was not his fault, the discomfort that had come again. The nagging ache, telling her how much she did not understand. How much she might never grasp of that time before her own when society had danced to such a different music.

‘I am pleased to hear it,’ she replied. ‘And...and, indeed, I am flattered.’

That time held Lord M’s youth. She ought to understand it better. She was too ignorant of her grandfather’s reign; her uncle’s reign and Regency. Maybe Mama and Conroy had intended her ignorance. Maybe that was why her lessons had skipped so shallowly across those long decades. Their ambiguities, licenses, forgivenesses, an infinity away from the hard cold symmetry of her Kensington cage.

Two years she had been sovereign of the greatest power on Earth. She should not be so foolishly ignorant of anything. She should not shy from learning because it made her blush. And, truly, what should make her blush any longer? She had lain with her husband when he was her husband only in her heart. She had conceived his child while the world believed her innocent.

There were tears in her eyes. Tears, and the Foreign Secretary was here looking at her, and it was shameful. Ten minutes ago, she had been perfectly calm and peaceful. Why could she not do better? Was her mind truly addled, as well as half empty?

Palmerston watched her colour fluctuate. She looked almost as if she would faint. Or she would rage. Emily’s mood had swung too, early in her pregnancies. Yet beneath every swing had lain her unshakeable sweetness; the sympathy, the warm unfailing kindness, glowing from every lovely facet of her heart. For her heart was a jewel. He hoped it was not treasonous to rank her character above the character of the Queen. Emily might not have the same strength, the same steel resilience, but nor did she have the same anger. He could not envy Melbourne the face he saw now. A small part of him was glad to find himself humble: he knew he was not kind enough, not tender enough, to be the husband of such a woman. Her husband must be tenderness itself.

Melbourne was coming, thank God. Those were his footsteps in the corridor. The Queen looked up, lashes glimmering. Her smile failed.

‘Lord M,’ she wobbled. ‘The Foreign Secretary is here with something important.’

The Prime Minister felt his skin chill at her expression. He glanced towards the other statesman. Palmerston widened his eyes.

‘William. I’m sorry to trouble you.’

He was sorrier for the concern - the startled beginnings of anger - in his friend’s face. They had not seriously argued for a long time. The Queen was already upset, and she had not yet heard about the Duchess. When she looked towards the fireplace, Melbourne mouthed ‘Damn you, what is going on?’, and Palmerston lifted helpless hands.

‘Your pardon,’ he mouthed back. ‘I don’t have your magic touch...’

Melbourne frowned hard. He walked to the sofa, leaned down, and Victoria found his handkerchief in her palm, his skin drawing warm and certain over hers.

‘Are you well, Ma’am?’

She nodded. Palmerston was looking at the ceiling. She held on to her husband’s hand. He pressed a kiss into the parting of her hair.

The Foreign Secretary had listened to enough rustling fabric. With gratitude he heard the Prime Minister speak again.

‘What’s taken you from the House, Palmerston?’

‘A rumour, I’m afraid. Not a pleasant one.’

He looked at Melbourne, standing behind the Queen. Pink had crept back into her face. It would wash out again too soon. Palmerston sighed. Peel could have done a better job than this.

‘I am truly sorry, Ma’am, for what I must tell you. The press have become aware of the recent quarrel between yourself and the Duchess of Kent. There appears also to be some awareness of the quarrel's content.’

Victoria stood. She had not thought to stand. Her feet had jumped her up. Even as Palmerston stood and towered above her, she felt tall, she felt high. Anger held her back straight. Anger stiff with shock.

‘How could they possibly know such a thing?’

‘Perhaps through your staff, Ma’am.’

‘No.’

‘A member of the Duchess’ household?’

‘I suppose that is possible.’

Over her head, Melbourne met the other politician’s eyes. His Foreign Secretary did not stall well. The truth of the leak was worse, and the cruelty of it waited heavy in Palmerston’s gaze.

‘Has my mother spoken to the press herself?’

The clear voice left Palmerston staring and aching. He wished for his almost-wife. Such a depth of pain was in the Queen that he wanted to flee from it, run home, run to Emily and hide his face against her shoulder. She should have given this news. She could have folded the poor girl in her arms. He was only a man, and had to stand aloof, look without comforting, feel without moving.

‘That is also possible, Ma’am.’

Melbourne swallowed. Out of any view save his, Victoria’s hand turned behind her back, and opened. He reached for it; rubbed her cold fingers.

‘Lord Palmerston,’ she said, ‘what do you intend to do?’

‘I mean to engage with and combat the rumour by every means required. So do Peel and Wellington.'

Her hand squeezed into Melbourne’s. She had to steady. She needed him to steady her. The world was swirling, juddering, and his hand on hers was all the safety left.

‘Sir, I am most grateful to you. To all of you. I trust in your good judgment.’

Palmerston bowed. He had to leave quickly. He could not bear her eyes. Frightening the editors would be less difficult than this. He would rather kiss Peel’s hand than the hand of a woman whom he had so sorely hurt.

‘You do me a signal honour, Ma’am. You will hear from me.’

Victoria inclined her head. He was gone before she raised it. She watched the door close, and let herself fall back, a silent fall into open arms.

‘It was Mama, Lord M. I know it was.’

He kissed the nape of her bent neck. Her weight was against him, her hands clinging to his sleeves, and yet he was clinging tighter. How different, short years ago, her words would have been. Surely she would have refused to believe what she did not wish to hear. She would have stormed and wept and her helpless pain would have been his agony. Now she tucked her head beneath his chin, and he pressed his nose into her hair and clung to her warm sad bravery.

‘How will you bear it?’ he whispered.

She turned her face up; her lips to his throat’s pulse. Her hands slid down over his knuckles. Their fingers linked. She cradled his hands in hers.

‘I shall bear it as I must. As a Queen. As your wife. As a mother.’

He wished that his arms could hide her. Her body hid the little being that grew within, and he wished he could hide her as utterly, block out the eyes of all the world.

‘What may I do, Ma’am?’

‘Be as you are, Lord M. Be your perfect self. Forgive me if I grow angry.’ She sighed. ‘Forgive me when…when I grow angry. For this - this news - I think it will be harder to bear than anything we have borne before.’


End file.
